Boss Paul Cook felt scoring the Blues’ late, late leveller on his debut for his hometown club must have been an amazing feeling for striker Macauley Bonne as his side drew 2-2 at home with Morecambe.
Cook admitted that the goals Town conceded were as bad as they come but felt that his side’s first goal in particular, netted by Scott Fraser, also on his debut, showed the quality his team has.
"We had a bumper crowd in, that was great,” Cook said. "From our point of view the goals we gave away were shocking, absolutely shocking.
"From Morecambe’s point of view, you’ve got to give them credit. They’ve probably come into a game where most of the country has expected them to just get beat and their lads gave every breath for their club. They can leave stadium the very proud
"For us, as everyone can see, we’re a new team. I think the first goal showed the quality that might possess in terms of opening Morecambe up and scoring an amazing goal but then we gave them the softest goal you’ll ever see.
"It sucked the life out of me, so I don't know what it did to the team. We all get the same emotions.
"When we got back into the game we needed to control the game and get into areas of the pitch where we can score a second goal like we scored the first, not make the game open and allow them to score again.
"Pleased not to get beat, up and running, delighted with out supported, thought the atmosphere was electric, it was fantastic, and we move on to the next game.”
He added: "We gave poor goals away, Morecambe had very little, but credit must go to Morecambe in the game, they certainly came with a game plan and the game plan for long spells worked.
"You saw a moment of quality with our first goal, that we can open teams up, but we’ve got to get those flair players the ball.
"To give the second goal away, the game was just panning out there where we weren’t enjoying it. The referee genuinely… for whatever reason the game was becoming a little bit of a circus.
"And that can be football. I think Morecambe were probably happy with that because it looked like the game had petered out and Morecambe could travel home with a great 2-1 win.
"I’m so pleased with Macauley Bonne, who is a massive Ipswich Town fan. To score a goal like that deep into stoppage time in front of your own supporters and your own people must be an amazing feeling.
"And that will stay with Macauley forever now and his family were all here watching him. I probably should have put him on earlier he’ll tell me, but that’s football.”
Asked what else pleased him, he added: "We’re just brand new. Yesterday we had players arriving at the training ground, we’ve got medicals going on, we’ve got new cars coming into the car park. We’re new.
"We’ve got to be given that time to grow. All we want to do is keep working hard, we want fans to leave the ground today hopefully speaking well about the game. It was a 2-2 draw, it was a good game, it was two teams very committed to winning and long may that continue.”
He says there are still areas of the side which need new additions: "At the minute if you got through our squad individually we still have a few positions and slots we want to fill.
"I think as you can imagine defensively will be one. We need another central midfielder, there are positions we have to fill and as a club we’re not there yet.
"The reality is that we’ll keep looking for the quality that’s required to play for this club. You must have quality and application to play here.
"We all come here with one target, to take us forward, and if players want to be like that they’ll join us, if not then we’ll keep being patient.”
Town lost Toto Nsiala to a hamstring problem in the second half with the centre-half set to undergo a scan on Monday to discover the extent of the problem.
"Toto’s been great,” Cook said. "For these lads that have been here previously, all of a sudden they’ve got such a desire to do well.
"We all want to do well, firstly for the owners, for Mark Ashton, for the supporters, for everyone and in that willingness to want to do well, we’ve got to make sure we just play football.
"We just stay on the page that we’re here for, we don’t get caught up like Lee Evans and Rekeem [Harper] late on in the game where they’re trying to do five men’s jobs. They’re very good at doing their own job, and that’s what we want from our players.
"Well done to Morecambe, I’ve got say that, a massive pat on the back. For us well done, again the same, and we move on to the next one.”
Asked how bad he thinks the injury might be, he added: "It’s football, isn’t it? It gives someone else an opportunity. We’ve got Corrie Ndaba at the club at the minute. We know what we need to do. We’ll never be down on players or anything else, it’s easy to come out and make excuses for anything.
"It was a game we probably felt we should have won, especially after equalising, and it’s a massive learning curve for our future.”
Cook says he’ll give the likes of Louie Barry, who was on the bench today, and Sane Aluko, who signed too late to be involved, a chance on Tuesday when Newport County visit in the Carabao Cup.
"One hundred per cent, we’ll get games into our players, 100 per cent,” he said.
He also promises more new arrivals with the deal to land Portsmouth’s Michael Jacobs, who was left out by Pompey today, close to being confirmed. We understand that the loan move for Middlesbrough left-back Hayden Coulson should finally be rubber-stamped on Monday.
"Yes! You know me lads, don’t go far away,” he laughed. "Mark Ashton’s on fire at the minute, isn’t he? Let’s keep it going.”