Ipswich Town - 3 (Venus pen 45. Taricco 82. Mathie 90.)
Crystal Palace - 0

Suddenly the bubble burst. After a good run of three wins (including the Cup match) things had to change, and they changed with a bang. Admittedly the scoreline only became this bad late in the match, when Palace were going flat out to find an equaliser, and hopefully once the team takes on a more settled look we will start to see a few more good results. The changes in this side saw Craig Foster in the side and Matthias Svensson making his run on debut. Hayden Mullins was back from suspension. The game started very quietly, the first action being reported at 16 minutes when, from a corner, Matt Holland hit the side netting. 23 minutes gone and Nick Rizzo found Matthias unmarked in the goal area, but his shot was not strong enough to cause Richard Wright any real problems. Fraser Digby made two fine saves to deny first David Johnson and then Holland. Attilio Lombardo and Svensson then took on the defence, but another fine save from the keeper kept them out. It looked as though the first half would end up with honours even, but late into time added on Paul Warhurst was deemed to have fouled Johnson in the area and it was left to Mark Venus to step up and convert the resultant penalty. 1-0 to the home side, and at the rate the referee was handing out yellow cards things were never really going to get any better.

The first chance of the second half took only five minutes to arrive, once again Digby doing well to keep out a header from Scowcroft. Sasa Curcic then sent in a perfect cross across the face of goal, the only problem being that there was not a Palace player in sight to knock the ball home. Mick Stockwell put Johnson clear of the defence, but Digby came to the rescue once again and finally Bruce Dyer was brought into the play. His first touch of the ball almost resulted in an equaliser for the visitors, his shot going just wide of the post. With only nine minutes remaining on the clock the home side finally put things beyond a reasonable doubt when Mauricio Taricco was allowed to run with the ball almost half the length of the pitch without being challenged and he finished by placing the ball past a stranded Digby. Another brilliant save, this time from a shot by Alex Mathie seemed to herald the last action of the day, but Mathie, with what turned out to be the last touch of the ball for the day, curled the ball into the net to make the final scoreline a rather flattering 3-0 to the home side. With our match against Sunderland postponed next week due to International commitments we can now only look forward to the visit of Norwich City next week. Here's hoping that the referee is a little kinder to us then.

Colin Pryce

Ipswich Town: Wright, Stockwell, Taricco, Clapham, Thetis, Venus, Dyer, Holland, Johnson, Scowcroft (Mathie 88), Petta (Tanner 77).
Not Used: Vernazza.

Crystal Palace: Digby, Burton, Zhiyi, Curcic (Dyer 68), Tuttle, Foster (Thomson 74), Lombardo, Warhurst, Svensson, Rizzo, Mullins.
Not Used: Del Rio.

Attendance: 16,387
Referee: Mr S Mathieson (Stockport).