Micky Mellon conceded that Tranmere had been beaten by a better side on the day after Forest Green rubber-stamped their League Two title credentials with a thumping 4-0 victory at Prenton Park.

Matt Stevens and Jamille Matt gave the impressive visitors a 2-0 half time lead before Jordan Taylor-Moore and Regan Hendry added two more to complete an unexpected rout in front of Rovers’ biggest gate of the season.

The result leaves the Birkenhead side in second place, but Forest Green have now extended their cushion at the top to 10 points with a game in hand and Mellon could only accept that they had been worthy winners of this contest.

Speaking after the match, he said: “A fantastic crowd came to support us. Terrific. But we would have to say, on the day, we just never really got going and were deservedly beaten.

“We lost too many duels all over the pitch in vital moments and never asked enough questions of them.

“All in all, on the day we weren’t really the best version of ourselves. Every credit to Forest Green, I thought they were very good and first to everything. They did show us how you have to deal with duels and come out on top.

“It’s something for us to learn on and what we’ll do is dust ourselves down over the weekend and come back on Monday and go to work again.”

“I would have to say that most of the afternoon we didn’t feel that we did enough on those one-v-one moments to cause enough problems or to snuff out the problems that they caused us.”

The result could have been even worse for Tranmere after Forest Green were awarded a penalty deep into injury time, but goalkeeper Ross Doohan was able to deny substitute Josh March from the spot.

Rovers do not have long to lick their wounds. They are back in action at Prenton Park on Tuesday evening when they face Stevenage and will be looking to bounce back quickly after what turned into a humbling defeat in front of a large crowd.