Keith Hill praised Tranmere’s spirit after they came from behind twice to beat Carlisle 3-2 and close the gap on the automatic promotion spots.

Josh Kayode and Nick Anderton put the hosts ahead twice, but Hill’s spirited Rovers recovered through Kaiyne Woolery and James Vaughan.

And it was the visitors who stole the points late on when Vaughan poked home his 21st goal of the season.

“We showed great spirit and a lot of skill as well,” said Hill, whose side are just two points off third.

“We showed a lot of determination and a lot of desire in difficult conditions against an excellent side.

“We’re really pleased, but we’re not getting carried away. You can never get too high when you win or too low when you lose.

“We’re really pleased with the result and more importantly the performance in and out of possession.

“I thought the lads were magnificent.

“They put you under extreme pressure, psychological pressure, footballing pressure, whatever you want to call it.

“But the lads stood up to that pressure. It’s very difficult because we’ve seen a lot of teams come here and fold in the first 20 minutes.

“For us to go a goal behind in the first four or fives minutes and to show that determination to bounce back twice is really pleasing.”

Carlisle boss Chris Beech was understandably “gutted” after seeing his side cruelly denied a point after leading twice.

The Cumbrians have won just once after their enforced Covid break and have slipped way off the promotion pace.

“To lose it in the way we did, the lads are gutted,” admitted Beech.

“All three goals were so avoidable and two quality strikers took advantage.

“It’s a blow, but we still have a long way to go in a remainder of the season that will have a lot of ups and downs.

“We can argue that we should have won, but we didn’t.

“Nothing’s changed. We know what we want to do, and we know what we need to achieve it.

“That’s what we’re focused on as we continue through this unbelievably busy period.

“I thought we were excellent in the second half. Commitment, effort, and we kept pushing for the goal.

“We started ever so well and it looked like we were going to step on. Unfortunately we’d committed forward and when you don’t win the first ball from a clearance against players like this, you tend to be punished.

“The breaks wouldn’t come our way and I think our luck was summed up when Vaughan cleared a header off the line.”