Boss Mick McCarthy felt his side just about deserved their 1-0 home victory over Birmingham City. Daryl Murphy’s ninth goal of the season in the 38th minute was the difference between the teams.
"I’d say it was a fair result - just,” he said. "I don’t think we dominated Birmingham by any stretch of the imagination. We had some decent chances in the second half.”
McCarthy believed it was an important victory as Town go into a busy March in which they play seven matches: "It’s the start of a really tough period for us with the amount of games that we’ve got and the quality of the opposition that we’ve got to play.
"We’ve got a tough week with away games at Middlesbrough and Yeovil, which is geographically challenging.”
The Town boss was pleased to see all three of his strikers — scorer Murphy plus Paul Taylor and Frank Nouble — involved in the winning goal: "It was nice, the build-up and the finish. It’s nice when that happens.”
McCarthy was delighted with Taylor, making only his third league start of the season as a late replacement for new loanee Jonny Williams, who suffered a minor injury in training on Friday.
"I thought he played very well,” the Blues manager said. "Jonny Williams was starting, Tayls wasn’t starting.
"When Jonny Williams got injured, there were two ways of looking at it and my view was that it was an opportunity for somebody else and Tayls got the nod. And I thought he played well.
"Jonny went off in training yesterday. He played on Monday night and he didn’t know he was coming here, so I think he went in and trained on Tuesday and then he trained on Wednesday and then he’s come to us.
"His day off would have been Thursday and he’s not going to come to us on Thursday and say ‘It’s my day off’. He trained and then he trained on Friday and maybe it was a little too much on the back of all that.
"He’s just got a tight glute, which is his rear, at the top of his hamstring. It wasn’t worth risking him. We’ve got plenty of games for him to play.
"He was disappointed, but Tayls wasn’t. As they say on the golf course, it’s a poor shot that doesn’t please somebody.”
The result moved Town — who kept a clean sheet at home for the fourth game running - up to ninth, four points from sixth with McCarthy believing his side are still well in the hunt for the play-offs: "We’ve got Wigan coming.
"Wigan are in the best place to get [the final play-off place]. They’re clear of us, they’ve got a really good squad, they’ve got Tunners in as well.
"They’re a team that have come down, they’ve still got Premier League players. The first five places are out of the question for us, we’re [seven] points behind them. I still don’t think we’re going to get them, whatever we are behind. But sixth spot, we’re still in there, still scrapping away.”
McCarthy confirmed that striker Frank Nouble was replaced just after half-time with a hamstring injury.
Birmingham boss Lee Clark admitted it was a fair result: "I think in terms of what we did on possession of the ball, it was.
"I don’t think we had enough quality and the decisions we made, the type of passes that we were playing at certain times of the game, were lacking that quality as well.
"I think defensively we were quite solid but we didn’t do enough when we had possession of the ball. I think the players’ efforts deserved something from the game but their quality in possession of the ball made that result happen.
"Lee Novak had a great chance in the second half and he’s been putting them in but unfortunately he put it over the bar and when you have a chance like that away from home when you’re not creating lots [you need to take them].
"That seemed a bit of a problem for us today, we were a little bit toothless really in terms of what we were doing with the ball.”