Kieran McKenna eager to reward Ipswich fans with Portman Road promotion party

Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna is determined to reward the club’s supporters with promotion after 5,000 travelling fans cheered his team on to a 3-0 win at Barnsley.

Goals from Nathan Broadhead, George Hirst and Conor Chaplin mean the Tractor Boys will secure a return to the Championship following a four-year absence if they beat Exeter at Portman Road on Saturday.

And McKenna is determined to finish off the job and extend their 15-match unbeaten run, which is the club’s best since Bobby Robson’s team were in their pomp back in 1980.

He said: “It was a special effort from the fans tonight. They made an incredible noise and that gave us such a boost.

“It was a big game for Barnsley as well, but it felt like we had more of the crowd with us than against us.

“Hopefully, we can give them something to really celebrate soon, but there’s still a big job to do on Saturday and we know that Exeter will not give us anything.”

McKenna added that he was impressed with the manner in which his team handled the pressure of the occasion against a Barnsley team that had won their previous nine home games and were still in the running for automatic promotion.

“It was a great night for our development as a team and a really good performance,” he said.

“Barnsley is a tough place to come and the game was everything we expected.

“The first half was really intense and we had to show all types of our game before we got the two goals and then delivered an excellent second-half performance to get a really important win. We dealt really well with the emotion of the occasion even after missing the penalty.”

Home keeper Harry Isted saved Broadhead’s spot-kick at 2-0 down but it did not inspire a comeback as Barnsley’s mathematical hopes of automatic promotion were extinguished.

Barnsley boss Michael Duff still took some solace in defeat, though.

“We got beaten by a good team but, although it sounds like a stupid comment now, I thought we were the better side in the first half even though we went in 2-0 down,” he said.

“Big games, though, are decided by big moments and we conceded a goal from a set-piece and two goals from long balls straight down the pitch so, for all of their good football, we shot ourselves in the foot.

“They were poor goals which is unlike us but they took their chances and, in the moments we had, we couldn’t quite do the same. There are still lots of positives though.

“I think, at the start of the season, most people would have settled for fourth in the league, even if it’s disappointing now, because we have been chasing the top two for a long, long time.”