It may only have been his second goal for Town but Jon Nolan could not conceal his delight at finding the net in Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with Derby to earn what could yet be a precious point.
Midfielder Nolan, who followed ex-manager Paul Hurst from Shrewsbury in the summer and was also on target when he opened the scoring in the 2-2 draw at Birmingham in September, made a massive impact after coming off the bench to replace Flynn Downes against Frank Lampard’s side, who were still holding on to the 1-0 lead they had taken in just the second minute.
Nolan’s introduction came in the 53rd minute and two minutes later Portman Road erupted as he took a pass from Huddersfield loanee Collin Quaner’s in his stride to fire low and hard beyond Rams’ keeper Kelle Roos from just inside the 18-yard area.
The Huyton-born former Everton youngster said: "It was only my second touch after I came on, so I’ll take that!
"Collin did a great job and that’s the best I’ve seen from him since he came in.
"I would even say that if he can play like that every week he’ll be unplayable. He and Will Keane up top were a bit of a nightmare for Derby and long may that continue.
"Before I went on the gaffer spoke to me about getting forward, creating space and getting into the box.
"We all know our jobs, really, so I knew I had to do that and try to get into the box, looking for scoring opportunities, and luckily when one dropped for me I was able to put it in the back of the net.
"When I was sitting on the bench watching the game I was thinking how well the lads were doing.
"It was really, really good. I thought Bish and Doz served us well in there. We had a young midfield but I thought they were excellent.
"I said to some of the lads afterwards that playing the whole 90 minutes would have been easier.
Nolan âž¡ï¸ Quaner âž¡ï¸ Nolan âž¡ï¸ GOAL!
Jon Nolan starts & finishes the move as he grabbed his second goal of the season last night 👇 #itfc pic.twitter.com/ymtQVSko37— Ipswich Town FC (@IpswichTown) February 14, 2019
"It seemed as if it was 90 miles an hour in the time I was on the pitch. The gaffer wants us to press and overall I thought we were excellent.
"All the lads are buzzing after that. The results have been tough on us lately and I think you could see from the fans’ reaction at the end that they appreciated the fact that we had a go.
"We played a new formation in both the Norwich and Derby games and I think it has worked well. Now we need to be ready to go again against Stoke on Saturday and take it to them.”
The only down side to taking a well deserved draw on Wednesday is that it did nothing to improve Town’s situation at the bottom of the table, where they remain 10 points from safety with 14 league games remaining.
It is going to require an incredible run of form to bank the necessary number of points to ensure survival but at the very least it is clear Paul Lambert’s team, if they do eventually succumb, will do so giving their all.
Nolan added: "We check and see what the other teams are doing but all we can do to influence the situation is concentrate on ourselves and make sure we start picking up more points.
"We’ve got 14 games to go and it’s all about picking up as many points as we can.”