Town boss Kieran McKenna felt his team were relentless until the final few minutes as they comfortably beat Forest Green Rovers 4-0 at Portman Road.
Conor Chaplin netted twice and Nathan Broadhead and sub Freddie Ladapo once each as the Blues defeated the bottom club with relative ease, Chaplin having got them up and running in only the third minute.
"Good start, early chances, early goal,” McKenna said. "That gives you a bit more of a feeling of control in the game because you know you’re ahead so when you’re facing a lot of bodies you can afford to be a little bit more patient, knowing that more opportunities will come because they’ll have to come out.
"And that was the flow of the game really. I felt we showed a nice balance between being patient but also being really aggressive and created a lot of chances in the game and had good concentration at the back.
"[The early goal] definitely helped. Of course, you always want a fast start and if you do that you give yourself a better chance to get an early goal and once you get the early goal, the feeling of the game is different because when you’ve got domination of the ball and they’re defending their box, you have that cushion and you know you can afford to wait for the right opportunities to come.
"It gave us a good boost in the game but I think the mentality of the group and the way they approached the game was really good and we were set for the game today, and whether we’d have scored early or late, I’d have had full confidence in the players.”
And having got their noses in front, the Blues kept going for the full 90 minutes looking to add to their goals.
"When you bring on subs that helps as well because they’re eager to get amongst it and Freddie managed to do so and I thought the subs did really well,” he continued.
"That helped give us a freshness and legs late in the game as well and we were pretty relentless until the last minutes.”
In addition to his classy volley, Broadhead created Chaplin’s opening goal with a clever first-time pass.
"I think he’s a fantastic footballer,” McKenna said of his £1.5 million January signing from Everton.
"We need to build him up in the right way, build him up from a physical point of view to where we think he can get to, help him understand his qualities and how he can be effective but he’s a very, very good footballer and we should enjoy having him here and seeing him improving.”
Chaplin has now scored 17 goals in all competitions, 14 in League One, and looks set to become the Blues’ first 20-goal man since Daryl Murphy in the 2014/15 season when the Irishman netted 27, all in the league.
"That’s good for him, another couple of good goals,” McKenna reflected. "He’ll be the first one to say that for a player like him who is effective in the box, it’s the quality of the service and the chances that you create for him and the players as a team performed very well in terms of breaking the opposition down and putting the chances there for him.
"And we know he’s a very good finisher in the box, so if you can get him on the end of things in the penalty area, there’s a good chance he’ll score.”
McKenna says January signings Broadhead, George Hirst and Harry Clarke are all increasingly integrated into the team.
"Him [Hirst] and Harry [Clarke], I thought today was a good step forward for both of them,” McKenna said.
"It’s not easy joining a team in January when you’ve not been playing regular minutes. Harry played good minutes but was a little bit in and out of a different team and in and out of different positions and different systems and George hasn’t played too much, and Nathan was in and out of a team which has been struggling a little bit playing a different style.
"So it’s not easy to adapt to this club, our style, our intensity straight away. It was always going to take a few weeks minimum but I still think they’ll improve over the next couple of months as well.
"But I thought today was another good step in that direction. You could see an increased understanding from the other players of how we can utilise them most effectively and an increase in understanding from them of what the requirements are from the team and their roles.
"Good to get the three of them making another step forward and good to get Massimo [Luongo] on the pitch as well, his first league minutes for us and we’ve missed having that option over the last few weeks, good to get him going as well.
"He’s got a really good feel for the game. I think you’ve been able to see that the couple of times he’s come on, in the first game against Burnley he came on as well.
"He’s got a really good game sense, he’s got a really good feel for the game, where the ball’s going to land, what needs to be done in any given moment and that’s why he’s able to get to the feel and the speed of the game straight away. You can see that in training, so it’s good to have that option for us now.”
Having ended a run of three successive draws, the Blues now need to back up today’s win with victories in their next three games, all against sides in the bottom seven with a trip to MK Dons up next.
"Yes, we want to try and win the next game next weekend,” the Northern Irishman continued. "That’s five games unbeaten, two wins, three draws and we want to go and try and win the next game, but all we can do is take it a game at a time like we did going into today.
"We’ll have a little bit of recovery time and train well next week and get ready for the next challenge.”
While the Blues were picking up three vital points, Plymouth dropped two as they drew 0-0 at home to Fleetwood and Bolton were beaten 1-0 at Wycombe.
"I haven’t checked, to be honest,” McKenna said. "I’ll see the results later on. We need to focus on ourselves. Today’s a good win, another good performance at home and we need to think 100 per cent just about the next game.”
The game saw the club and fans pay tribute to Sir Bobby Robson on what would have been his 90th birthday.
"It’s an honour to be here on a day like today,” he said. "I think it was a great addition to the day. It’s an honour and a privilege to be in charge of the team on that anniversary and nice moments when the crowd were applauding.
"I think we scored in the 78th minute, which was brilliant, and then Leif [Davis] I think hit the post in the 81st at the end of a fantastic flowing move from Christian Walton that I’m sure he would have enjoyed, so if that one had gone in that was the only other thing we could have asked for today.
"But it was nice that the fans and the club honoured that landmark and nice that the team could contribute to the day as well.”