Boss Kieran McKenna hailed Town’s 1-0 live-on-Sky home victory over Derby County as a good night for the club in lots of ways.
Wes Burns’s 67th-minute goal saw the Blues to the three points, although the margin of victory could have been wider with Kayden Jackson having missed a penalty.
"It’s a really good win, good night for the club in lots of different ways,” McKenna said. "Lots of eyes on us from the outside and I think the club did a great job.
"Great job from the supporters, fantastic atmosphere in the ground and the atmosphere matched the ground really, it was really intense. It was intense from the first minute to the last minute.
"It was as we expected, no quarter given and we had to earn everything that we got. I thought our intensity was fantastic all night. I thought we deserved the result off of the performance, especially probably in the first half. I thought we were good value for a goal.
"But a really tough game, we fought, we played well at times, we can be better. We can improve but it was a well-fought and a well-won three points as a football club.
"Probably the execution of the final pass, the execution in the final third didn’t match what went up to that point at times.
"But that can happen. When a game is so intense, so emotional, it’s hard to always find that little bit of composure when you need it and when it’s like that it’s important to keep the clean sheet and stay connected and wait for the opportunities when they come.
"I thought our pressing all night was fantastic and we were alive and connected with the game all night and that’s exactly what Kayden was for the goal.
"He anticipated the back pass, we get good pressure on the ball, force a bad back pass and he anticipates it and was unlucky not to score himself, but it was well followed-up by Wes.”
Jackson was given Sky’s Man of the Match award, which he accepted a little sheepishly having missed the penalty and struck the post with the chance which led to Burns’s goal.
"I thought he was excellent, I have to say,” McKenna continued. "I know he’ll be disappointed he didn’t score the penalty but that’s a difficult situation because Lee [Evans] is the designated penalty taker, Conor [Chaplin] is the other designated penalty taker and neither of them were on the pitch, so it takes courage to go and grab the ball and step up to take it and the keeper saved it. That can happen.
"If he’s disappointed with that, hopefully he can get over it quickly. I thought his all-round performance was outstanding, he was, as he was at Sheffield Wednesday, unplayable at times against good, experienced defenders.
"I thought it was one of his cleanest games that the he’s had for us on the ball in terms of his hold-up play and his connections and, of course, his running and his pace. Thought there were some excellent individual performances out there and his was certainly one of them.”
McKenna was disappointed Town didn’t go on to score once or twice more having gone in front.
"I think our composure in the last 15 minutes could have been better,” he reflected. "It was, of course, difficult and again the game is so emotional and so intense and the players are just so desperate to win and do well for the club.
"But we had incredible situations at the end to pick out the last pass, to break and it broke down too often. We can improve on that.
"When you get that first goal and [Derby defender and captain] Curtis Davies might have played maybe 15 minutes up front at the end, certainly 10 by the time you include the added-on time, and we keep defending well and regaining the ball as we did, then we can certainly be more clinical to go and finish that off on the counter-attacks.
"We’ll learn from that and we can improve on that and, as I said to the players downstairs, it’s October, it’s three points, it’s no more than that. We need to keep improving and keep moving forward.”
One negative aspect of the evening was Lee Evans being forced off with an injury in the second half.
"He’s got a sore knee, the inside of his knee, so that’s usually not great,” McKenna added. "We’ll have to see how he is over the weekend.”
Town are already without one of the regular central midfielders at Port Vale on Tuesday with skipper Sam Morsy suspended having been booked for a fifth time.
Derby boss Paul Warne felt his pre-match assessment that Town will go up was vindicated by the performance.
"I said before the game that Ipswich will go up and I still think it’s nailed on,” he said.
"They made it difficult for us in a game of very few chances. Sometimes away from home you just need to be resolute and take the point.
"It was obviously a mistake for the goal but we weren’t as good in possession as we were out of it and we had loads of opportunities where we should have finished with something.
"But in fairness that could be down to Ipswich’s pressing, their effort and their organisation as much as us.
"I think we can play a lot better than that but we’re not far off. The biggest disappointment for me is the injuries we picked up that mean Tom Barkhuizen and Curtis Davies are both out for a while and that’s a problem.”