IPSWICH Town team captain Gareth McAuley took comfort from last night's 1-1 Championship draw at bottom-of-the-table Nottingham Forest.

Elvin King

IPSWICH Town team captain Gareth McAuley took comfort from last night's 1-1 Championship draw at bottom-of-the-table Nottingham Forest.

But he revealed that he was left with mixed feelings after the Blues failed to beat rock bottom Forest.

The result may not have been what Blues fans wanted to lift the general gloom surrounding a series of lacklustre results, but the performance was an improvement.

And McAuley says that Town could gain the benefit in Saturday's visit to Plymouth.

“The flow in the side was much better last night,” he said.

“If we can keep an unchanged side - depending on injuries etc - we can go into the match at Home Park confident of getting a result.

“I can feel that results are coming and if we approach Saturday's game in the same way we tackled last night's we can bring home three points.

“We are not having the run of the ball and if Jon Walters' first-half shot had been a bit lower and not struck the bar we could well have won handsomely last night against a side that because of their position was a bit short on confidence.

“If that had gone in they could well have fallen apart.”

But McAuley warned that there cannot be a delay in turning draws into wins if this is going to be anything other than a mediocre season.

“As I said, I can sense we are turning the corner, but there is no good that comes out of keep saying it,” he said. “We have to prove it on the pitch.

“It was a mixed feeling I had coming away from the City Ground.

“On one hand I was disappointed because we did not win against a lowly side. But on the other the performance was improved and we did what we set out to do - keep the ball and pass it around.

“It was a definite penalty with Quinny (Alan Quinn) tripped from behind while there was a touch of good fortune about the Forest goal.”