Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna felt his team deserved to clinch an 'absolute classic' victory in this afternoon' 2-2 home draw with Championship promotion rivals West Brom.

The Blues twice went behind against a Baggies side that has one of the best defensive records in the division, Tom Fellows' well-taken opener (18) and John Swift's long-range strike (76) coming either side of Nathan Broadhead's leveller (46).

Town once again showed their never-say-side spirit though, equalised in the 93rd minute through substitute Omari Hutchinson's rifled finish and pressed hard for a winner in the remaining five minutes of added time.

"I thought it was a really good game and a great atmosphere," said McKenna, whose fourth-place side remain 11 points clear of fifth-place West Brom.

"Bar from maybe a couple of inches at the end we'd have been talking about an absolute classic in terms of games we've had at this stadium. 

"There were lots of good things about the performance on the ball and off the ball. I think we deserved the three points to be honest. 

"There are obviously two moments where we didn't defend well enough. It's another game where we feel we've done enough to win the game and that's frustrating. There's a lot of pride in the way we played though, the effort given, the atmosphere the supporters created and the way they stuck with it.

"West Brom are probably the best team in the division at defending one-goal leads, so for us to be in that position against them twice, get a point and deserve all three - I think we can take a lot from that."

Town have now won just two of their last 11 games to fall off the pace in the automatic promotion race and crash out of the FA Cup. Just like against Maidstone and Preston, this was another game where the Blues dominated the stats, but didn't get the result to match. Over the last three games, all seven shots on target conceded have ended up in goals against.

"It's a little run where in plenty of games we've had the better opportunities and the better chances, not given too much away, but not won. That's of course frustrating," said McKenna.

"But it's always much more concerning if you're not creating chances and you're giving away a lot of chances. That's not been the case.

"You have spells in the season where you're extremely clinical and make some big interventions at the other end. We had that earlier in the season. You hope and trust that if your performances are consistent, and you're creating more than you give away, that you'll pick up plenty of points."

Asked if he felt his team was playing better than results suggested, the Blues boss replied: "In many ways, yes. We don't feel like we're far off winning games.

"The Championship's a really tough division and you're going to have stages where you don't win as many. You can count back in different ways. You can say one win in nine (in the league), or three wins in 11.

"We're drawing too many games that we feel we should win. But we're not losing many. We have to accept that and keeping looking to improve.

"We won't hide from the areas we need to do better on and that will help us turn good performances into victories, but at the same time we'll keep focusing on we're doing day-to-day and trust that over the course of time you normally get close to what you deserve.

"We still feel like we're doing a lot of good things as a team."

Having now conceded the first goal in five successive games, McKenna said: "It's not something that we're ignoring that's for sure.

"I didn't think we won enough challenges at the start of the game. We spoke about that before the game but, despite that, I didn't think we won enough challenges. I thought we were still playing pretty well, but West Brom came out on top of all the 50/50 balls. On too many occasions where there was chance to win the ball we didn't win it. That didn't allow us to create the same domination that we had in the later stages.

"There are a lot of different factors for that. There are two teams on the pitch. West Brom have excellent players and our players are still at full-stretch to compete at this level to be fair. You're not going to have the whole 90 minutes.

"We won't hide and shy away from the fact we need to find ways to consistently impose ourselves on the game at the start, but on the other hand you have to respect the level that we're playing at and the competition that we're up against.

"We have to take a big positive that the players fully believe that if we stick to our plan over the course of 90 minutes then usually we're still going strong at the end and the other team have the feeling they've been in a really difficult game. I think that was the case today. Certainly by the latter stages we were coming out on top of all those things. We've worked the opposition so hard and so well with the ball that there's a fatigue element come the end.

"We'll speak about it again before Wednesday night (at Millwall). There are a couple of things in my mind that we will try and address. But at the same time we respect the level that we're operating at at. You're not going to have the whole 90 minutes and today we've had more than enough of that 90 minutes today to win the game."

Australian international Cameron Burgess joined back up with the squad this week having been away at the Asian Cup, but was not part of the matchday squad.

McKenna explained: "He's only just returned, having been on the bench for most of their games and not trained much, so it wouldn't have been easy for him to step straight into a game of that intensity today.

"And I think George (Edmundson) has been playing really well, to be honest. I think he's been one of our best players and I thought he was one of our best players again today.

"That's a good position to be in, Everyone is going to have to earn and keep earning their places in the team."