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Joe: We Dominated - Ipswich Town News

Town boss Joe Royle felt his side were hard done by as they lost 3-1 at Carrow Road. Royle thought his side played well and was unimpressed with some of Mark Clattenburg's refereeing.

The Town boss said: "For the second time in the space of five days we've lost after totally dominating a game. It's very frustrating.

"I think we've got a lot more quality than the top two, it's just that we haven't got the same resilience and defensive nous.

"At the end of the day we've lost the game so there's not really much more I can say."

The Canaries' first goal Royle felt came from a bad decision: "First and foremost I thought it was a poor decision, a home decision by the referee because there was never a foul in the first place.

"But from then on I can't argue with the fact that it was a poor piece of defending. We allowed their big centre-half a free header and you just can't get away with that at this level. The player concerned knows he has made a mistake.

"Then we went and conceded another one soon after and again it was poor marking from a set piece.

"That was very annoying after the way we dominated the match in the first half.

"I thought we played them off the park and would have been 2-0 up at the break had there been one less coat of paint on the woodwork.

"There was also a large slice of good fortune about their third goal because Huckerby's shot took a huge deflection off Georges Santos before going in.

"That sums up the sort of luck we've been having recently but we can't afford to feel sorry for ourselves. We've just go to pick ourselves up and move on to the next game.

"Automatic promotion is going to be very difficult now - we'd probably have to win all our remaining matches - but we'll keep battling away."

Norwich boss Nigel Worthington also thought his side were lucky not to be behind at the break: "For one reason or another we just didn't turn up in the first half.

"I couldn't really put my finger on why that was but we weren't putting in the necessary hard work and Ipswich could easily have been two goals up.

"Fortunately we had a little bit of luck - and in the second half you saw the real Norwich.

"One or two words were said at the break and the team went out there and showed tremendous character to record an excellent result for the club.

"It was a real game of two halves, but at the end of the day we won the game and that's all you can ask for at this stage of the season."

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