Tommy Smith has reflected on Town’s weekend away win as they prepare for a double date at home that could edge them close to the play-off places.
Smith headed a fifth minute clincher at Charlton on Saturday and knows the importance of building on that result when Blackburn and Huddersfield come to Portman Road tonight and on Saturday respectively.
The 23-year-old defender said: "It’s always nice to get on the score sheet but at the end of the day my job is to keep goals out and it was nice to get a clean sheet.
"I hadn’t scored in a while but when I had two earlier chances I was thinking to myself ‘Yes, I’m going to get one today’ and fortunately I was right.
"It was particularly nice to score it down at the end where all our fans were because we had a great following at the game.”
Town made a whirlwind start at The Valley and Smith might have netted twice before he did head what proved to be the winner.
He added: "We started like that against Leicester and got an early goal. It’s something we have been working on and hopefully it can carry on for a long time.
"It’s always going to be tough because the other teams are going to have their spells of dominance in games at this level and it’s about how you come through that and who doesn’t make the mistakes.
"We held out well and we never really felt the goal was under too much threat. It was all in front of us and we dealt quite well, I thought, with whatever they came up with.”
Both Town’s next opponents are alongside them on the 23-point mark so it is an ideal opportunity to close the gap on the play-off zone, where sixth-placed Reading are five points better off.
Smith said: "Our goal has got to be to make it nine points out of nine. With two home games to come we’ve got to build on that performance away from home against Charlton.
"We had a great win at Blackpool and then a disappointing result against Leicester when we felt we probably should have come away with at least a point. We need to build on the Charlton result and start a little unbeaten run now.
"We should be looking to pick up maximum points from the two home games and if we can do that it will put us in a really strong position heading into the Christmas period.
"But there are no easy games in the Championship and you can see that from the results at the weekend. Doncaster beating QPR, you probably wouldn’t have picked that, but anyone can beat anyone on their day.
"It’s just about who nails that consistency down and who can get on a little run of results. If you do you can soon find yourself up towards the top places. We’re due a home win — it’s been a while now — and hopefully we can give the home fans something to shout about.”