Town captain Dara O’Shea was beaming with pride after leading the Blues to their first East Anglian derby victory at Carrow Road for more than 20 years.

Goals from Jaden Philogene and George Hirst in the first half were enough for Town to claim a 2-0 victory on enemy territory to complete a first league double over the Canaries since 1992/93.

An entire generation of Blues supporters had not witnessed a victory at Carrow Road, but Kieran McKenna’s side were able to chalk off another record that also aided their automatic promotion hopes.

O’Shea says the victory will be felt by everyone connected with the club.

“It’s special,” he said. “For us as a group, that’s really important. We’re a new group as such that maybe the fans haven’t clicked with us as of yet, so to be that group that have done that now, I hope that brings us closer to them and we can all push on in the right way.

“They’ve been unbelievable with us this season. Days like this, you can feel what it means to the fans and supporters. You walk around Ipswich and this is the game that everyone speaks about.

“It was really important today that we got on the right end of the result, it didn’t matter how we did. To give the fans something to claim back that, it’s been 33 years since we’ve done the double which is a long time. I don’t think there’s many players that are older than that in our group.

“For us, it’s amazing to give them that and I'm really proud. You see how happy they are after the game and you see how happy we are.

“It’s what football is about, these are the results you want as a football club. I’m so proud that we’ve been able to give them that. Hopefully they’ll have many more things to celebrate as a club.

“Games like these mean so much to us and our fanbase, so to get on the right end of the result is massive for everyone. The performance probably didn’t matter too much as long as we got the result, that’s what everyone will remember.

“I don’t think it was our best performance today, but we got the job done. Sometimes in the Championship that’s what you’ve got to do, and you’ve got to win games like that. I’m proud of how we went about it and massively buzzing for everyone that we won the game.”

As expected, the atmosphere inside Carrow Road was raucous. While Town could be found guilty of not playing up to that pressure in the past, the same could not be said on this occasion in Norfolk.

There were no fewer than 10 yellow cards during a fierce battle that saw pantomime villain Marcelino Núñez subbed on and off again during a chaotic 23 minutes on the field.

Earlier in the week, O’Shea claimed the team that deals with the occasion best would give themselves the best platform to win the game.

Following the victory, he said: “We knew coming into this game how hard it was going to be for us to settle the nerves down and try and play the way we want to play.

“I don’t think we played our best stuff today, but I thought we dealt with it well at times. There were times where the crowd were really hostile towards us, and it’s just taking the sting out of it and understanding it’s in our hands and we’ve just got to do what we’ve got to do.

“We defended brilliantly today, we worked out feet excellently to get behind the ball and put ourselves in good positions. I’d like to think we came out on the right side of that today, so I'm happy with that.”

The defensive performance was perhaps the most promising aspect of the whole afternoon, as the Blues dealt with countless balls into the penalty area and did not allow their hosts a significant chance throughout.

Jacob Greaves continued with a starting place and has impressed since replacing Cédric Kipré four games ago, with his centre-back partner unsurprised at his high level of performance.

“Jacob was unbelievable today,” O’Shea said. “It doesn’t really matter who plays in that backline, because we work so hard in training, everyone is ready and there when called upon, and they’re able to slot in seamlessly.

“Jacob’s done fantastic since he’s come in. It’s not easy when you’ve been out of it for a while to get thrown back into it and play game after game. I thought he’s been excellent and credit to him and how hard he’s worked.

“I think Norwich are one of the best sides in the league. Since their manager has come in, they’ve been unbelievable and their points show for that. They play a really nice way of football.

“We knew it was going to be a test today, especially coming away from home to a place like this. We knew it was going to be hostile and lots around us with Marcelino coming back here and stuff like that, so it was going to be a big game.

“We knew we were going to have to stand up to it today and defend well. We did, I thought we were excellent with everyone, we defended from the front which was the main thing, and that’s what won us the game.”

Photo: TWTD