We are home to Sunderland in this on Wednesday, 7pm kick off.
I hope a good few of you will be able to see our next generation under the lights at Portman Road - for what will be the career highlight for some of them sadly.
We have a good squad this year, but may lack a bit of firepower which could cost us.
These defeats we've suffered are heavier than we used to against the real stellar Australian sides.
It doesn't look like it'll be anything other than 3-0 when we play in Perth and the series will be wrapped up by Xmas.
What to do now? We don't want to go down the reactionary style that we used to where we chopped and changed team all the time, but this management team are just beginning to look stale - bar the excellent win in India last year we haven't batted well for so long.
Surely it should be no surprise that footballers are taking money of people when, even in the regulated markets of the UK, there is playing betting on next yellow card, penalty to be missed, no goals in next 5 minutes, etc.
That doesn't even take into account what the markets are in the unregulated Asian markets.
Sadly where there is people there is greed, it's human nature.
According to someone fairly senior at the club, it is a 'pop' act that they are trying to get in.
They wouldn't give anything away as to who it was they were trying (using same promoter who got Barry Manilow) but were adamant it was pop and not rock which is a bit disappointing.
Other than McGoldrick our forwards and midfield players are much of a muchness so makes a great deal of sense to keep the legs fresh in there. I wrote a blog a couple of seasons back about how rotation is vitally important in the Championship (http://joefairs.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/to-rotate-or-not-to-rotate.html).
I think Mick learnt this lesson the hard way on New Years Day when a leggy looking ITFC side was turned over by Brighton - since then he has often made sweeping changes to a second game in 3 days, or when there has been a midweek match.
It's not just performances on the night which improve but the break it allows players helps them stay injury free in a busy period over Christmas - but it was really noticeable that we looked very fresh in 2nd half as we closed the ball down high up the pitch with the likes of Hyam excellent at this.
We really do have a top manager at this level, which is no great revelation I know.
