Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna felt his side's 2-1 win at Swansea City this afternoon was as good as any of the memorable away victories secured on the way to promotion last season.

Nathan Broadhead and Conor Chaplin scored either side of a Jerry Yates equaliser in the first and, having been unable to kill off the game, Town then had to defend manfully in the relentless rain to secure the three points.

Following on from Wednesday night's 4-0 victory at Millwall, the fourth-place Blues remain hot-on-the-heels of Southampton and Leeds in the Championship automatic promotion race with 14 games to go.

"It's easy to take for granted, because we've done so well in terms of points, but this is still a big, big step up, to come to Swansea away from home, who are a good team," said McKenna, whose side will now host rock-bottom Rotherham on Tuesday night.

"I thought that was as good a performance as some of our second half of the season ones last year when we won at some big football clubs (Bolton, Derby, Peterborough and Barnsley). A similar level performance today got us a a hard-fought 2-1 win.

"These are the margins that we're going to have to keep fighting to stay on top of at this level."

Reflecting further on the game, the Blues boss said: "I really enjoyed it. It was a tough game, a proper game, and it took a really, really good performance to come out on the right side of it.

"I thought we showed all the best bits of ourselves at different stages of the game. I thought we played some really good football in very tough conditions. We played some brave football, built through the pitch well, created some opportunities from it and scored two goals.

"In that sort of game state you know the next goal will be really important. We wanted to try and stay on the front foot as much as possible and I thought for the first part of the second half we did that. We had some good opportunities but weren't able to take one. 

"When you don't do that you know it's going to take a different type of performance in the later stages of the game. I thought we managed to do that with the starters and the subs that came on. They probably don't get as much credit as when they come on and score a goal, like they have been very often, but today they come on and helped see the result over the line.

"I thought our organisation to limit them, certainly in free play, was good today. And of course probably the biggest bit was the absolutely outstanding commitment, effort and resilience shown.

"Vas (Hladky) makes a good save at the end. We're not going to win away from home without moments like that, to be honest. I'm very pleased and proud of what we gave today."

The goal that ultimately won the game came in familiar fashion, with Leif Davis latching onto Cameron Burgess' well-weighted forward pass and cutting the ball back for Chaplin to sweep home on the run from the heart of the box. 

"It's a great goal," enthused McKenna. "It's one that we work on and we really executed it well.

"You can see the benefit of the left-footedness of Cameron, from an attacking point of view, that we've probably missed over the last six weeks while he was away (with Australia at the Asian Cup). Leif's first touch is great, the movement in the box is great and there's no-one better stepping onto it than Conor."

Asked if he and he players had discussed Southampton and Leeds both picking up wins in the Friday night and Saturday lunchtime games respectively ahead of kick-off, McKenna replied: "Honestly, no. I'm not putting any stock on it and I don't think the players are either. As I've said before, we have no energy left to give so we can't afford to use it up worrying about what other teams are doing."