Town defender Tommy Smith would be quite happy if the recent habit of winning games in the final minutes continued against QPR at Loftus Road tomorrow.

It happened when the Hoops came to Portman Road on Boxing Day and skipper Luke Chambers clinched victory in the closing stages, then again when Ryan Fraser earned an FA Cup replay against Portsmouth and Brett Pitman sealed all three points against Leeds.

Pitman was at it again in midweek, pouncing to turn in fellow substitute Luke Varney’s low centre in the 89th minute, just two minutes after leaving the bench to replace Daryl Murphy, as Town climbed back into the play-off zone with a 2-1 defeat of Reading.

Smith said: “It’s not a bad thing, obviously, to score late winners but it keeps the punters guessing and that’s probably not so good for their hearts.

“It shows that we keep going right to the end and hopefully we’ve got a few more of them, although it would be nice to win a few more games a bit more comfortably.

“It shows the character we’ve got that we do keep going to the end. We never give up and that’s certainly a good thing to have amongst the squad. It’s good to be back in the top six after slipping out recently.

“We’d rather be in there than chasing and the longer we can keep ourselves in there, looking upwards, the better.

“You never know what can happen. Teams go on bad runs — it happened to Derby last season and they fell away right at the death — so we will just keep going and see where it takes us.”

Last year’s play-off disappointment is a major driving force for Town this season, with players eager to wipe out the memory of defeat to arch-rivals Norwich over two legs at the semi-final stage and instead going to Wembley and winning the final — if, that is, Smith & Co cannot clinch an automatic promotion place ahead of firm favourites Hull and Middlesbrough.

Smith added: “There is absolutely no doubt that the players who were involved against Norwich, and who remain here, are still hurting from the way it happened last season.

“It does give us that impetus and we all want to better it this time, and everyone wants to be in the Premier League.”

Only Smith and fellow defender Chambers are ever-presents for Town in the Championship this season and he is happy that the team have put a dip in form behind them to be breathing down the necks of fellow challengers Brighton, Derby and Burnley.

He said: “I think the whole back four and keeper had a bit of a shaky period but we’ve come through it now and I think we’ve been performing admirably recently.

“I’m left-footed and playing on the right of the defence but I feel I’m getting more comfortable with each passing game.

“In fact, if you look over the history of my appearances for Ipswich I’ve probably now played more games on the right than on the left.”

Photo: Action Images

Seasider added 17:59 - Feb 5 Yes I would also like us to win games a bit more comfortably occasionally too Tommy. Number of times this has happened under under MM think you can count on one hand;but have only been soundly beaten 3 times,twice in Micks first month in charge,and this season against Reading
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