Boss Mick McCarthy admitted that the Blues’ second half went more as he’d dreamed it than he’d planned it after substitute debutant Grant Ward netted a hat-trick to see Town to a 4-2 opening day victory over Barnsley at Portman Road.
Asked whether the dual half-time additions of Ward and fellow new signing Conor Grant went as planned, McCarthy quipped: "No, maybe as a dreamed it!
"In the end [it was a good afternoon], it didn’t look like it after 45 minutes when they were the better team and deserved to be in front.
"But the second-half substitutes have just turned it around completely, well one of them anyway. But they both contributed.”
He added: "I knew I had two good players. We’ve been saying, me and TC, that he’s definitely got a goal in him, but I didn’t think he’d got three in 45 minutes! And all really good strikes.
"He’s impressed everybody since he’s come in, as has Conor Grant as well. But Bish was toiling, it was hard work for him, typical the sun came out the first day of the season.
"They played well, we were having to do a lot of work and Bru had been booked, so it was just a common sense decision to take him off.
Happy to have scored first professional Hat-trick on my debut for @official_itfc Couldn't have… https://t.co/XFYkCLJoEf
— Grant Ward (@GrantWard_) August 6, 2016
"We went 4-3-3 and it worked and it was Grant Ward that was free because of it, probably. He’s run on to a ball in the middle of the park and smashed it into the net. I wanted more goals from midfield!
"We’ve seen he can do it, he had three great strikes, and the other fella’s got a wand of a left foot.
"It’s fresh blood, hopefully it continues to work. It’s worked today, let’s hope it does for the rest of the season.”
He says he was always going to start with this week’s signings Ward and Grant on the bench: "I’d made my mind up to start with the team I had. To be fair, Bish has been in all the pre-season games.
"I wasn’t going to play him in the middle of the park, both of them would have been playing wide and it would have been a little bit unfair on Freddie as well. It’s nice when it works out.”
McCarthy admitted that opting for Christophe Berra ahead of Tommy Smith was difficult: "Tommy was one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make. We’ve had three debutants on the pitch as well, which is pretty good.
"I thought Webbo is learning the Championship, it’s a step up, he’ll get better and better.
"It was a difficult decision with Tommy. I wanted a right-sided defender, so we can play out the back, play from there and have a bit better balance. There’s going to be a helluva scrap to play in those positions.”
McCarthy felt his strike pair Daryl Murphy and David McGoldrick were effective without being at the top of the game.
"I thought early on it was a bit of a mix really, both sides were having chances,” the Town boss continued. "I’m happy to have them back, but I can’t say that that was an outstanding performance from Didz and Murph.
"In the second half when we went to 4-3-3 they caused them problems but nobody’s really fully fit. Didzy’s missed a helluva lot of football, Murph’s come back and been away all summer. It’ll take them a few games to get up to speed. But overall I was pleased with them.”
Despite the victory, McCarthy admitted to having concerns: "I’m not happy that we conceded two from freekicks, I’m less happy though that we gave the freekicks away as we had the ball on both occasions, lost it and had to give freekicks away.
"But it’s nice when you can look at it on a Sunday morning and pick the bones out of it with three points on the table.
"I would imagine out of all 23 fixtures some will have played well, some will have played badly, some will be happy, some won’t be happy, some will have played well and got beat. That’s just the way the league is.
"So it’s nice that we can be sat with three points and me and TC can go and pick the bones out of it tomorrow morning at 7 o’clock.”
Having spoken about wanting to win fans back after last season’s disappointing home displays, he feels fans will have enjoyed today’s game - the second half at least - albeit not necessarily for the right reasons.
"Anybody who has come today will have been entertained, there’s no doubt,” he continued. "But I would have imagined after the first half they were all thinking of leaving.
"Funny what 45 minutes can do, and all of a sudden we’re all [upbeat]. That’s why us managers and coaches have to go in tomorrow morning and pick the bones out of it rather than saying, ‘That was great, we won 4-2 and everything’s rosy’, because quite clearly it wasn’t with the whole performance.”
McCarthy also had praise for keeper Bartosz Bialkowski, in particular for his remarkable first-half stop from Tom Bradshaw: "That was a bonkers save, I don’t how he’s done it.
"He does it all the time in training. He frustrates the hell out of our strikers, he gets applauded for it. He’s a fabulous goalkeeper and that was just an outstanding one. I don’t know how he got his hand to that.”
The Town boss says he had to go a fetch Ward into the dressing room after the match: "He was signing autographs and having selfies with his adoring public, wasn’t he. I thought I’d go and get involved in a few! No, I was trying to drag him in.
"Despite he scored the goals and we’ve won the game, everybody else was on that pitch. It’s a team game. By all means enjoy that, and I’m glad he did, but he needs to enjoy it with his team-mates, who over the next 45 games are going to be running, kicking, bollocking, biting and chasing and they’ve got to look after each other.
"So it’s important that he celebrates with his team-mates as well, which he did. They were all delighted for him.”
Asked whether Ward will keep his place? "He might do, for Tuesday.”
Barnsley boss Paul Heckingbottom said his side were given a few lessons on life in the Championship: "That’s the difference in going up a league and we have to learn from it.
"There were lots of positives but it’s frustrating that Ipswich had six shots, all on target, and scored four goals.
"It’s not just that, it’s the manner of the goals we conceded. We would normally expect to stop them.
"The players will know we can cope at this level and that we belong here but we’re not going to be a pretty team that gets beaten.”