Jason Banton's strike on the stroke of half-time ensured the 60th Football League Devon Expressway derby between Plymouth Argyle and Exeter City went the way of the Pilgrims.
Veteran striker Jamie Cureton went close for the Grecians, but was unable to find the target as the Pilgrims held on to clinch maximum points for the third league game in succession.
The win moves Argyle closer to the League Two safety mark in 20th place with 46 points, whilst Exeter find themselves occupying 7th place.
Plymouth boss John Sheridan was delighted with the efforts of his players and said: “I’m very pleased. I think we deserved to win. It was a very good performance in a big game, a derby game, against a good team. They are a very good passing team and have had some excellent results away from home, but I thought we kept them quiet for most of the game.
“The first five minutes worried me the most. Full credit to my players: their effort to try to win the game was brilliant – and it has been since I’ve been here.
“We knew we had to get into their faces. If you let them play they are one of the best teams in the division. I would have liked us to pass the ball a little bit more. "
He also admitted that he was slightly envious of them to be playing in such an occasion. He said: "I told them to go out and enjoy the game. I was jealous of them.
"I would love to have played. These are the games you want to be involved in. There were 13,000 here on a sunny day. It killed me watching it."
Grecians boss Paul Tisdale remained philosophical and insisted he would be looking ahead to their Easter Monday encounter with Rochdale.
He said: "What we need to do is to move the next game, we've got six games to go and there's 18 points at stake.
"As much as I feel miserable now, it's good to acknowledge that and understand why and how, and to move to the next game, so when talking about our performance today, we didn't play well enough and we didn't up our game.
"We started well for the first 15 minutes but didn't really find that form for the remainder of the game."
Tomorrow will see Argyle travel to York City, who are currently managed by Sheridan's former Sheffield Wednesday team-mate Nigel Worthington, and Exeter host Rochdale, who former Pilgrims' defender Keith Hill is currently in charge of.
