Boss Mick McCarthy felt Cole Skuse’s “wonderful strike”, his first ever goal for the Blues, changed the dynamic of Town’s 3-1 home victory over Cardiff City.
"I think Skusey over the last two or three months has taken his performance to a different level, I think he’s been outstanding,” the Town manager said of the 28-year-old, who created Daryl Murphy’s late goal.
"Ever since he walked in the door he’s been absolutely inked in on that teamsheet, he’s been a star.
"Much maligned sometimes, probably because he doesn’t score and doesn’t hit those threaded passes. Well, he’s done both tonight. What a great time to start doing it.
"His strike was brilliant but I just thought his presence of mind to put Murph in in the last minute and, thank goodness, get Murph off 23 for the season was fabulous.”
Has he seen many better goals than Skuse’s 29th minute 30-yarder? "Not really. I don’t think anybody has, have they?
"It was just a wonderful strike and we needed it at the moment because after they scored they had a good period in the game and that changed the dynamic of the game.
"It was such an emphatic strike that it got the crowd up, got us up and killed them a bit.”
Quizzed on whether the former Bristol City man has taken some stick from his team-mates for his lack of goals, McCarthy added: "Skusey take ribbing? No!
"Skusey with his mickey-taking is like an Exocet missile, you know it’s coming, you just don’t know when. He’s a silent assassin with that. He doesn’t get too much ribbing Skusey, he’s too cute.”
Skuse celebrated his goal with club masseur James Pullen but McCarthy wasn’t sure why the one-time Blues keeper was singled out, although he was sure he wasn’t the one the goalscorer was aiming for when he ran towards the bench.
"I’ve no idea, they might have been talking,” he added. "He does the massages, they’ll be chatting. I wasn’t going to get wrapped in it and he came running towards me but I knew he wasn’t coming to me.
"Noel Hunt did that at Charlton, he came running and I blanked him and all and I think Balint Bajner thought he was coming to him and Hunty ran straight past him. You make yourself look a real chump if you go for that one and it’s not for you!”
Asked whether he was elated following the back-to-back home victories over Blackpool and Cardiff, McCarthy said: "I’m knackered! Of course, we’re all delighted, but we’ve all come in and we’ve seen the results and I’ve almost pulled the rug from under their feet, I didn’t want to, but we go to Wolves on Saturday.
"We’ve won two games, it’s great, we’re in the play-offs, we’ve got a bit of a buffer. But there’s a slap waiting for somebody on the last game of the season, I can tell you, so let’s remain focused on what we want to do and Wolves on Saturday.”
Regarding this evening’s display, he continued: "We might not be the best team in the league, but we’re certainly as tough an opponent as anybody you’re going to come up against, certainly here.
"When we do it how we do it then we’re a real threat and we’re a tough team to play against, and we’re a good team when we do it.
"I think we’ve got a team we can be proud of, that’s what’s nice. They all put a shift in. Yes, we might play badly [sometimes] but it’s not for the want of trying.”
McCarthy was delighted with Freddie Sears, who netted his eighth goal for the Blues following his £100,000 January move from Colchester.
"And he’s such a lovely guy as well, unassuming, just gets on with it,” he said."I like the other contribution he’s made.
"I said to him yesterday, ‘Your goals are great, that’s the icing’ but he gets them because he works bloody hard as well.
"I think he’s added that to his game. I told him when he walked through the door ‘If you don’t run around, you won’t play’.”
As for the second-half flashpoint when Cardiff’s Fabio looked likely to be red-carded for reacting to Tyrone Mings after fouling the Blues’ full-back, McCarthy said: "He was going to get booked for his tackle and then he pushed him, maybe he pushed Ty in the stomach, he didn’t push him too high up, I suppose.
"I prefer not to see them getting sent off. There was a chance. But then I don’t know why Ty got booked, that was a bit of a strange one, it was for sort of being involved. I think he was the one that had been sinned against.
"I just wish they’d get on with it, put the yellow card up and stop keeping everybody guessing what they’re going to do.
"They could just quieten it down and say ‘You have one, you have one’, write it in his book and get on with the game. We all have to have this performance now with the spray, it slows the game down.
"I think they’re having a rest, personally, having a breather half the time. It’s like a piece of theatre now, isn’t it? That spray I thought was a great idea, now I think it’s a pain in the arse.”
Looking ahead to Saturday’s crucial game against his old club Wolves - in eighth, like seventh-placed Brentford now three points behind the Blues - he says the dynamic of that match hasn’t been changed by this evening’s results, at least not from Town’s perspective.
"I think it would be silly of us to sit back and invite pressure when we’re probably one of the best teams at putting people under pressure and hunting it and stopping people playing,” he said.
"I think if we let Wolves play we’d have problems. It’s maybe changed the dynamic for them, they now have to win the game, I’d say.”
Despite his six-year spell as manager at Molineux, he insists the game hasn’t been in his thoughts more than any other: "Not at all because I can’t affect it until Saturday. I’m not like that. That’s not my bag.”
Cardiff City boss Russell Slade felt his side played well but made too many mistakes: "I thought it was a decent performance and 3-1 was a little harsh on us. We were well in the game and had a great chance for 2-2.
"But individual errors cost us - which was disappointed as we had flagged up certain things before the match.
"We had to be aware of the one long ball to Sears and we also flagged up stopping Skuse, those his strike took a deflection.
"I have been in the play-offs and so has Mick. Ipswich are a good yardstick for us and I thought at times tonight we were very, very close to them. We were really enterprising at times.”