Ipswich Town: Conor Chaplin on Blackburn Rovers win

The 27-year-old scored the winning goal in the game, playing a one-two with Leif Davis before slotting the ball into the bottom corner of the net.

From there, the match between increasingly uncomfortable, with the hosts growing in confidence and piling on the pressure, albeit that they failed to find an equalise as the Blues took all three points in Lancashire.

“It was tough, we found it really hard,” Chaplin said after the game. 

“The second half wasn’t a vintage performance from us by any means. I thought we were good in the first half, in the build-up we were good. First and second phase we were really good, but we were a little bit wasteful in the final third.

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“I know they had a couple of goals disallowed, but rightly so. I think we could’ve been a little bit more comfortable at half time if we were a little bit more clinical.

“We had loads of good chances. I had a couple with my left foot, felt like I should’ve done better. It’s a penalty on Broady as well, a stonewall penalty.

“It’s away from home in the Championship, you’ve got to find a way to win. I think we’ve done that throughout the whole season. It probably puts us in good stead to keep doing it.

Chaplin scored his 13th goal of the season in the win (Image: Pagepix)

“It’s massive. It’s not going to be free-flowing football all the time, sometimes you’re going to have to defend your box really well. I don’t think we stayed aggressive enough in terms of staying high, I think we sagged a little bit too much for how we’d like.

“It’s a clean sheet as well, so we need to be happy with it. We need to win this way sometimes throughout the season, especially at home. We did that today.”

His strike takes his total for the season to 13, making him the top scorer in the team after 39 games. 

He also ranks above the leading marksmen in the Championship, but he still wants more, believing that he really should have one more.

“Really it should be 14,” he argued. “The Plymouth one should’ve been given to me, which I’m still really annoyed about.

“If the EFL listen to this, I don’t know how they’ve not given it to me!

“It should be 14, but 13 as it is. I need to get some more before the end of the season, definitely.”

It helps to have a serial creator like Davis in the team. The left-back now has 15 assists to his name, giving him the record for a defender in a single Championship season.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Chaplin admitted. “I don’t need to speak too much on Leif, I’ve said it a lot.

The 27-year-old was full of praise for team-mate Leif Davis (Image: Pagepix)

“I don’t know what the record is for someone assisting someone else so much in a season, but he’s got to be close for me!

“I owe him a lot, but I don’t need to say too much. He’s been massive for me and we’ve got a really good relationship.”

On a personal level, Chaplin’s doing well. He missed the last game - a 6-0 win against Sheffield Wednesday - through injury, meaning that he’s had nearly three weeks to rest and recover for this game.

Although he was substituted just after the hour-mark, he feels that the break will do wonders for him ahead of the final seven games of the season, even if his stamina may take some time to get back to its best.

“I feel great, really good,” he explained. “It probably took me a little bit longer to get my second wind today because I haven’t played and trained as much in the last two weeks as I have done.

“I feel really fresh. I had a break because of a slight injury, so I’ve had a bit of time off feet, which has probably helped me in terms of freshness, leg wise.

“It’s just the lungs that took a bit of time to get going today, but you always take one game to get back to an automatic 90 minutes.

“Now that one’s out of the way, I think I’ll feel really good.”

The team as a whole has to stay focused on the task at hand. 

The midfielder had a three-week break after missing the 6-0 win against Sheffield Wednesday through injury (Image: Ross Halls)

While fans celebrated the win, as well as the fact that Leeds United, Leicester City and Southampton all dropped points, the players  have to focus on taking each game at a time, which feels like a difficult task. Of course, that’s different for a group like this.

“It’s really easy,” Chaplin revealed. “I’m not just saying it. With the manager we’ve got, the staff we’ve got, the culture we’ve got at the football club, within the dressing room. It’s easy. It’s just the next game.

“The pressure doesn’t come in the dressing room. We were used to this last season - everyone said it was a must-win game every single game and they’re saying it the same this season. 

“It doesn’t come into the conversation in the dressing room. It’s just the next game, the next performance.

“Every game is going to be different. You see the Sheffield Wednesday game compared to this game, it’s two completely different wins. It’s going to be like that throughout the last seven games.

“We can draw on the experiences from last year and use them, but something that we’ve done throughout the whole season in terms of taking one game at a time.

“That’s a culture thing. It comes from the manger, it comes from leaders in the dressing room, and that’s the way it needs to stay.”

It’s also different for the fans, who’ve been part of an amazing journey in the last couple of years. 

Chaplin wants Town fans to enjoy the Championship promotion race (Image: Pagepix)

More than 4,000 of them backed the team at Blackburn on Good Friday, making an unbelievable noise that helped the team grind out a crucial win.

“It’s brilliant for them, that’s how it should be,” Chaplin said. “It means so much to us, it means so much to the fans.

“They need to enjoy it, they need to get carried away. That’s their job.

“We feel that support massively. Today I think they helped us tremendously in the last few moments. The board goes up for five minutes and they’re cheering to get behind the lads. It makes a big, big difference.

“We all need to be together, which we have been for the last two and a half years.”

With that in mind, surely Ipswich have what it takes to secure back-to-back promotions?

“Yeah, of course,” answers Chaplin.

“We’ve got a big game against Southampton. They’re a top team with top players.

“We haven’t looked at them yet, so tomorrow [Saturday] will be a chance to prepare for them.

“They’re a really good team with a good manager and a good style of play. They’ve got a philosophy that they really believe in and they’ve got quality throughout the squad.

“It’ll be another really tough game.”