Town manager Joe Royle said he thought that even Norwich fans would feel his side would deserved their 2-0 victory over the Canaries at Carrow Road.

Royle said: "I don't think even the most die-hard Norwich fan would disagree that we deserved to win today.

“The only worry I had was that we might be punished for not putting our chances away. We missed three good opportunities in the first half and when we had a good appeal for a penalty turned down I was beginning to think it was going to be one of those days.

"But the boys kept at it and in the end they got their just reward.

"This is an excellent win for us and I feel really pleased for the supporters as well as the players. It hasn't been the best of times for them recently - we've had a couple of poor results at home and there's the administration business - but this is a great boost for them. You could see how much it meant at the final whistle.

"The win also keeps us in the hunt for the play-offs although we're not getting too excited about that yet. We've just got to carry on winning and see where it takes us."

The Town manager was thoroughly impressed with the league debut of 16-year-old wonderkid Dean Bowditch: "The boy did extremely well for us. He's still young enough to play for our U17s but he came on and has done extremely well.

"In normal circumstances we wouldn't have brought him in so soon. The experience will have done him good but he'll be back learning his trade in the youth team soon."

Norwich manager Nigel Worthington said the better side won despite his players' best efforts: “I've got no complaints about the commitment and work rate of the players - that was first-class - but Ipswich did keep the ball better than us and I thought that was the decisive factor in the end.

"This is a blow, there's no doubt about that, but we'll still keep battling and we've got another home game against Reading to look forward to on Wednesday.”

Norwich midfielder Mark Rivers, a regular scorer against Town in his Crewe days, felt his side never got going: "All the lads are devastated in the changing room. It's always hard when you lose such a big game, especially a derby. We just didn't perform like we know we can."

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