Steve Evans paid tribute to man of the match Dean Campbell after Stevenage thrashed Barrow 5-0 at the Lamex Stadium to go nine points clear of the play-off spots.

A first half screamer from Jake Reeves put Boro into the lead before second half goals from Jamie Reid, Dan Sweeney, Luke Norris and an own goal helped Stevenage romp home.

After the match, Steve Evans said: "All of the second half we played with a real application to win the ball and to pass it around and to move them around and we did that with aplomb.

He paid tribute to his opposite number in the Barrow dugout, before saying "we made some changes tonight that we wanted to make reflective of doing our homework, and particularly the 2 or 3 changes we made, everyone was outstanding.

On Reeves' goal, he said it was "difficult for Paul Farman in goal because it moves three times and I see the goalkeeper just shrugging shoulders because he couldn't have saved it.Reevesy was outstanding all evening.

On Boro's squad depth, he said: "We've got two or three players on the bench tonight that we would have played if we had to play them but in an ideal world we didn't want them on the pitch", including Danny Rose, Jake Taylor and Arthur Read.

"But we introduced some players and they helped create some great movement, some great passages of play, and it was as dominant a second half performance as you could wish to see.

"We've just got to take this level of performance and see if we can replicate it in the big game next weekend here against Mansfield.

"Danny Rose was really impressive the last couple of days in training" and it was a "big call" to pick "the boys who were outstanding at Kings Lynn last week".

He paid tribute to Jamie Reid and Luke Norris, who scored his 100th career goal and Evans said he "worked so hard, lots of energy and a goal or two".

"This is a tremendous group of players, tremendous characters ... we've not mentioned Dean Campbell, best player on the park tonight, him and Jake Reeves, both exceptional.

"We do not care who we pick when it comes to picking the tean, we respect everyone but we pick a team that we think can do the job.

"I think Leyton Orient will be comfortable champions, I've said that for a while.

"We've got some tough games coming up, I suppose the only one who's on paracetamol tonight is the Aston Villa manager if he's tuned in, he's really getting worried."

"There are some things believe it or not that we can improve on tonight, but the one thing about this group is that they react to working hard."

Jake Reeves said: "It's probably the best we've played for a while in terms of the complete performance, clean sheet, restricted them to minimal efforts at our goal.

"We kept the ball when we needed to, and obviously we're delighted to score some goals too.

"We dealt with them really well and came out second half and showed our quality.

On his goal: "I couldn't see it, I've just been told apparently it was moving all over the place because the keeper was on that side so I was quite surprised it made its way in but if you don't shoot, you don't score.

He continued: "It's about the collective, and obviously when you get put in a more advanced position it gives you an opportunity to get on the scoresheet, so I'm delighted to do it.

"We dealt with their threats really well, we know they counter really well.

"Our game plan was to be expansive but at the same time to be really wary on the counter-attack, so you need that second goal to kill a team like that."

"It's nice when a game plan works as well as it did tonight, we know it's a tough league.

"When everyone's firing, it's difficult for teams to come here and stamp their game on us.

On his two assists: "It's always nice when you're on set pieces, we've not got our head on them too much recently so it was nice that everything went to plan."