Christophe Berra insists Town will bounce back from QPR defeat

Town played as well as they have all season in the first half but were punished for individual errors in all three of the visitors’ goals, who took full advantage with some ruthless finishing.

“I think going into half-time we probably felt we should have been ahead,” said the Scottish international.

“We had chances, especially on the counter attack but our final decision just let us down.

“We’ve all got to keep on learning, we’ll take the positives out of the game and look at the things we could’ve done better and just move on.

“It was disappointing that our unbeaten run came to an end but we’ll bounce back.”

Mick McCarthy’s men certainly gave Harry Redknapp’s star-studded QPR side a bit of a wake-up call in the opening period, with the Blues well on top and very unfortunate not to score against a Rangers side who were expected to cruise to the Championship title before a ball was kicked in August.

But Niko Kranjcar was allowed too much time to cut inside and stroke a shot into the corner of the net seven minutes after the restart. Then Rangers further punished Town’s defensive sloppiness as Gary O’Neil bundled home after Dean Gerken failed to save Charlie Austin’s shot sufficiently, before Tommy Smith presented Armand Traore the third as he failed to deal with a high ball.

Smith, who has excelled next to Berra for the majority of the season, half redeemed himself with a spectacular consolation goal at the death, and Berra had some encouraging words for his defensive partner.

“It was a great finish from Tommy and on another day he would have probably celebrated a little bit more,” he said.

“It showed good character (to score) after the third goal that we conceded – that’s the type of boy he is and he’ll be back to normal on Tuesday night.”

Town travel to Preston in their FA Cup Third Round replay tomorrow night, kick-off 7.45pm.