DARREN Huckerby's 200th appearance in the colours of Norwich City ended on the worst possible note - but the striker left Portman Road with one last dig at the Canaries' biggest rivals.

DARREN Huckerby's 200th appearance in the colours of Norwich City ended on the worst possible note - but the striker left Portman Road with one last dig at the Canaries' biggest rivals.

Ipswich's 2-1 victory kept alive their hopes of a place in the play-off picture come the end of the season. But Huckerby isn't convinced the Blues will last the distance, after seeing them dominate Norwich for long periods but missing a hatful of chances on Sunday.

"They are a good team, but there are a lot of good teams up there and if they do go up they will have deserved it," said Huckerby. "They made a lot of chances today, but I don't see them as one of the teams going up to be honest. They might get to the play-offs but there are some really strong teams left in that top six."

Danny Haynes - once rejected by Norwich after a trial with the Academy - again tormented City, forcing Alex Pearce to concede an own goal for the equaliser and then scoring the winner just before half-time.

But while Huckerby was impressed by the 20-year-old he believes he has a few edges that need polishing.

"If he'd done better today he could have scored four or five, but he's a good player," said Huckerby. "He played well and caused us a lot of problems. If he carries on progressing he will be a decent player two or three years down the line."

While Huckerby may doubt Ipswich's promotion credentials, he was the first to admit they deserved the points yesterday, having shrugged off the effects of Ched Evans' early goal for City to dominate the game.

"I thought they were the better team on the day and could have won by more really," he said. "After a great start we got sloppy and let them back in the game and after that I think there was only going to be one winner. It was the perfect start, I thought we started really well. The first 10 minutes I thought we were the stronger team, we were getting in behind them and then the own goal transformed things completely. After that they were the better team."

City were without skipper Mark Fotheringham - and that affected Huckerby's game.

"To be honest I only touched the ball three times in the first half," he admitted. "Fozzy does tend to try and get on the ball and bring other people into the game, but we didn't pass the ball as well as we can do today and for large parts of the game we weren't really involved."