Town loanee Will Keane has recalled his ideal league debut earlier this month when he scored his first goal for the club to secure a vital 1-0 win over relegation rivals Rotherham at Portman Road.
The striker, who has joined from Hull until the end of the season, admitted: "It was massive for me. For any striker it’s probably the perfect start but even more importantly we got the three points.
"I was just so glad that we hung on because it was a tough game and we soaked up a lot of pressure late on.
"It was a great start for me and we’ve been a bit unfortunate that we haven’t managed to build on it in our last couple of games.
"We had two tough away games but I feel as if we have given a good account of ourselves. Maybe certain decisions have gone against us but we also know we’ve made some little errors and that we’ve got to put them right. Hopefully we can go into this weekend’s game with positivity and get a good result.”
The goal that saw off the Millers was 26-year-old Keane’s first since April last year and only the seventh of an injury-plagued senior career launched at Manchester United alongside twin brother Michael, the Everton and England central defender.
Asked if he had missed the special feeling of hitting the back of the net, he added: "Yes, of course. Obviously, as a striker you breed success on goals and I was just delighted to get that one against Rotherham. Hopefully, I can build on that now, but it was a great moment, especially as it was at home.”
Fellow striker Collin Quaner, on loan from Huddersfield, is now keen to get off the mark and Keane believes the pair have already struck up a positive understanding in their short time together.
"I’ve been really impressed with Collin and I’ve enjoyed the first couple of games, playing up front with him,” said Keane.
"He’s a great presence and he has a lot of great attributes. He was quite unfortunate not to score last week at Aston Villa — everybody knows what happened — but he knows that if he keeps doing the right things it will come his way and hopefully this weekend.
"I felt as if I linked up well with him in the first couple of games. He’s an intelligent player and I felt as if we bounced off each other well.
"It’s good to play up front with someone in terms of sharing the load and he’s a real physical presence as well. He’s a good outlet for us.”
Stockport-born Keane, who has also had loan spells with Wigan, QPR, Preston and Saturday’s visitors, Sheffield Wednesday, has already demonstrated he has much to offer whether played up front on his own or in a more withdrawn role.
He said: "I feel as if I can do either the number nine or number ten roles because that’s what I have done throughout my career.
"In my first couple of games here it felt as if I was getting some joy in the number ten role and then in the last game I was obviously the number nine.
"I probably didn’t get as much service with it being away from home because it can be a tough role at times. But I feel quite comfortable in either role and whatever the manager wants me to do I’m quite happy to do it.”
With parent club Hull, who sank as low as second bottom in the table, having won six and drawn one of their last seven league games to join the race for play-off places, Keane was asked what it would take for Town to go on a similar run and boost their chances of staying up.
"I think the home form is massive because that’s where you build your momentum,” he responded.
"But our last couple of games were both away from home and could have quite easily gone our way.
"Getting back to back wins can help to spring the confidence and before you know it you can go on a roll.
"That’s what obviously happened at Hull with winning six on the bounce because once you have the first couple it breeds the confidence straight away.”
Are Town actually better than their league position would suggest and are opposition teams perhaps guilty of thinking they are an easy touch? Keane said: "Maybe but you’d have to ask them that. I think when we were coming off the pitch last weekend Villa knew we had given them a good game and maybe they were quite surprised at how well we controlled the game at times.
"I’m sure people know about the manager here and how experienced he is. He’s drilling into us exactly what he wants and expects from us, tactically, and we’re doing a lot of work on it when we’re on the training ground. None of us are surprised that we’re going into games and competing.
"If other sides are going to underestimate us we’re hoping that we can surprise a few of them.
"Mainly, though, we’re just concentrating on ourselves and we know that if we can play to our ability and do well there is no reason why we can’t get results.”