Phil Brown broke his Preston duck and is dreaming of an open-top bus parade, while Ian Baraclough admitted Scunthorpe were 'beaten up' after a 3-0 home defeat at the hands of their relegation rivals.
Brown claimed his first victory as North End boss at the 13th time of asking as goals from Keith Treacy, Billy Jones and Iain Hume were enough to see off the sloppy Iron at Glanford Park.
Preston are still propping up the Championship table and remain 10 points from safety ahead of Saturday's home clash with managerless Coventry, but Brown has his sights set on a great escape and ensuing celebrations.
The former Hull City boss, who famously serenaded the KC Stadium with an impromptu karaoke session after keeping them in the Premier League, admits he is facing an even tougher task in his new role.
Brown said:"Pressure does mount but it's pressure that you put yourself under in the pursuit of success.
"The biggest challenge of my career was to get Hull City into the Premier League.
"Now without a shadow of doubt my biggest challenge is to keep Preston North End in the Championship.
"If we can do that then I'll be screaming for an open-top bus at the end of the season. It would be a massive achievement."
Glimpses
Brown says that belief holds the key to his side's survival hopes. He could certainly not fault his players on that score at Glanford Park as they tore into their hosts from the first whistle and could have been 5-0 up at the break with better finishing.
"Belief is such a massive word,"said Brown."It's only six letters but it's such a big word in our game.
"We've got Coventry at Deepdale on Saturday and if we got back-to-back wins then suddenly that belief gets stronger and stronger.
"We've had glimpses of great performances in recent weeks and teams are just starting to respect us.
"We've got to go up another notch now and I think tonight with Iain Hume, Keith Treacy, Chris Brown and Eddie Johnson we would have provided problems for any team in the country.
"But it wasn't just about them. It was a team effort and I'm absolutely delighted with the clean sheet."
Beaten up
Scunthorpe's first-half display was as bad as anything witnessed in the Championship all season and on this evidence they will playing their football in League One next term.
Baraclough's men failed to create a single opening in the first 45 minutes, much to the disgust of the home supporters who booed their team off at half-time and again at the final whistle.
"We got beaten up tonight, plain and simple,"admitted Baraclough."I can fully understand that people are frustrated, of course I can.
"I've been in the game long enough to realise that if you're not getting results then people aren't happy, but I feel I can do the job.
"Tonight we just didn't perform and we were shellshocked to be 3-0 down at half-time.
"Can we stay up? While there are still points to play for I'm confident we've got the right group."
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