Boss Mick McCarthy felt the Blues thoroughly deserved their 2-1 victory over his former club Wolves at Portman Road.
"I think it was a fantastic performance,” he said. "I know when you win it’s easy to come and crow about it but I think we played well. I think we deserved to win as well.
"I’ll let you guys rate the performances but it was a confident performance and I think it was one of the better ones, certainly.
"I don’t think we let Wolves play and I think Wolves are a really good team. We’ve watched them, they play some great football and we didn’t allow them to do it, and also played some good stuff as well."
The Blues quickly got on top of the visitors, closing them down and not giving the time on the ball from the off.
"Closing people down is part of the game,” added the Town boss, who was in charge of the Blues for his 100th game. "If you don’t do it, you get beaten. I think you’ll find they were closing us down as well and stopping us playing as well.
"I know it’s easy when you’ve won, but I think it was a good, competitive Championship match with some quality in it. And it’s nice it was a top end clash.”
Despite being sacked as boss at Molineux in February 2012 McCarthy says he bears the club no ill will: "I’ve got no axe to grind with Wolves or any bitterness towards them whatsoever. I loved my time there.
"I had more than six years, successful years, there and I loved my time. But I’d prefer it if I’m going to get any texts from Wolverhampton that they’re saying ‘Well done’ rather than ‘He he he, we beat you’. That’s what goes off, so of course it’s better, and it’s three points.”
Regarding two-goal Daryl Murphy - now the division’s joint-top scorer with 10 alongside Derby’s Chris Martin - McCarthy added: "It’s as well he got the winner because he got Luke Hyam booked for not tracking that runner!
"He can’t play on Saturday so he owes him his appearance money and his bonus from anything if we win it.
"Fabulous, there’s still perspective on that, you still have to do those dirty jobs, which he did for 99 out of 100 occasions. He’s great.”
It was a particularly heartening display given that five players were absent and McCarthy revealed another of his regulars almost missed out: "David McGoldrick came in and had treatment, his back went into spasm in his car. TC was next up if he’d have dropped out.”
While fans will take great delight in the Blues, who are now fifth, moving ahead of seventh-placed Norwich City, McCarthy is remaining typically grounded: "Big deal. How many games have we played? Sixteen? Only 30 to play then.”
Wolves manager Kenny Jackett admitted that the Blues were the better side: "No complaints, I think Ipswich worked our goalkeeper more than we worked their goalkeeper.
"We can look at the nature of the goals, two quite glaring individual mistakes led to them.
"Other notable incidents could have changed it. There was perhaps a penalty on Michael Jacobs going through [just before half-time]. Some you get, some you don’t.”