Roy Keane calls for calm and consistency and quickly looks towards bigger games ahead

A hugely impressive and comfortable 2-0 victory against a promotion-chasing side with your new signing scoring his fourth and fifth goals in just his eighth game.

Surely a good night by anyone’s standard? But Ipswich Town boss Roy Keane has endured too many low points this season and seen rare positives quickly extinguished, normally in the next match.

While most fans revelled in an excellent victory over promotion-chasing Cardiff City, Keane was keeping both feet firmly on the ground after the 2-0 win. Both match-winner Daryl Murphy and the rest of the team were left in no doubt that a morale-boosting win over a team in sixth was good, but only the start.

Keane refused to get carried away as Ipswich moved up to 17^th in the Championship and stretched their unbeaten run at Portman Road to an impressive 12 matches. Put a different spin on it and those dozen home matches have only seen five wins with the side failing all season to record back-to-back wins. They have a chance to put that right on Saturday in a relegation six-pointer at home to Scunthorpe with just three places and three points separating the sides.

Keane preferred to look at building on the surprise win over Cardiff rather than praising a good night’s work. He told the club website: “We know what we are capable of but what we haven’t been is consistent and that is hard to take. If you want to achieve anything in life or sport, you have to be consistent. We all have our off days but we have had far too many and it is nice to beat a good team like Cardiff.

“We know we are capable of doing that as we have given some of the top teams close games like West Brom and Forest at home. We now need to be more consistent. Our home form has been decent but with far too many draws and draws don’t get you up the table very quickly. We know we are capable of getting results which can obviously get us away from the bottom. We will enjoy the (Cardiff) result but we have to get ready for an even bigger game on Saturday.”

Murphy has quickly converted the many Town supporters who doubted Keane when he signed another Irishman and Sunderland player on loan in January. Murphy joined with David Healy who was meant to be the “fox in the box” that the side desperately craved.

But it is Healy who has yet to win over the faithful with some nice touches but little end product against Cardiff. And it is Murphy who is proving to be a clinical poacher with both his goals, either side of half time, showing that he is happy to get in the box and apply the finishing touch.

While Keane wasn’t too quick to overly praise his team, the same could almost be said for his verdict on Murphy’s short time in Suffolk. Of his new recruit, he said: “In all the games he has played, he has had chances and he has scored five goals for us but he could have had eight or nine easily. No doubt he will be disappointed he didn’t get a hat-trick.”

And Keane refused to agree that the manner of the 2-0 victory was comfortable even though Cardiff offered precious little for most of the 90 minutes. While most inside Portman Road probably expected a nervy end consistent with most of the season, in truth it never actually came with the home side looking much more likely to extend their lead then let City in. But the manager said: “When it is 2-0, we know it is a dodgy lead and if Cardiff had pulled a goal back with 15 or 20 minutes left, it could have been completely different.”

But Keane did extend praise for the home debut of 19-year-old Shane O’Connor who excelled at left-back and never gave Cardiff’s highly-rated winger, Chris Burke, a look in. Of O’Connor, who was raised through Liverpool’s academy, Keane said: “The boy should be very pleased. In the games he has been involved in, he has never let us down. The supporters enjoyed his performance and he is a good, honest young player. He is learning his trade, and he has a hell of a lot to do, but he has a chance.”