JIM Magilton hailed his players after Town extended their unbeaten home run to 17 matches by beating league leaders West Brom to move back into the top six.

By Derek Davis

JIM Magilton hailed his players after Town extended their unbeaten home run to 17 matches by beating league leaders West Brom to move back into the top six.

After an even first half Ipswich stepped up a gear while the Baggies went into reverse and goals from David Wright and Jason De Vos secured their first win in four matches.

Magilton said: “Second half was as well as we have played for a long time. We lacked a bit of self belief earlier on which was possibly a hangover from the two defeats but a couple of misses by them helped us.

The goals came from two unlikely sources but Magilton was not surprised, just delighted.

“In a tight game like that you sometimes need to take the risk of winning and David (Wright) did that.

“As for Jason (De Vos), it was a doubt that he was going to play. But he is a man's man and was determined to play and he did a tremendous job.

“To keep strikers like Miller and Phillips out the way he helped to do takes some doing and in the end Tony Mowbray had to change them.”

Magilton was reluctant to pick anyone out but had special words of praise for Liam Trotter, Jon Walters and Pablo Counago.

“Liam is only 19 but it is perhaps time to unleash him. Jon did a fantastic job on Jonathan Greening who can hurt you, when we didn't have the ball and every time we got the ball into Pablo we looked a threat.

“This was a fabulous 2-0 win against the league leaders so I'm not going to get hung up about away results.”

Baggies boss Tony Mowbray refused to look for any excuses and praised Town for stopping them getting their game going.

Mowbray said: “We were below par but credit must go to Ipswich, especially their midfield for the way they closed us down.”