A second successive play-off defeat to West Ham brings to an end a season that at times had promised so much. Two second half goals by Bobby Zamora settled the encounter in the visitors favour and the 4-2 aggregate victory deservedly takes the Hammer's on to Cardiff to face either Preston or Derby for a place in the Premiership.

Sick of the play-offs? This was Town's sixth failure at the semi-final stage since the play-off's were first introduced at the end of the 1985/86 season (a league record) and the fifth occasion in the last nine years that Town fan's have had to endure this end of season heartbreak.

Post match reaction:

BFJ: "I will go away fairly quickly and get some reading done. It's hard to take, and the players will feel it as well just as they did last summer. But they've got six week's break and we will see what transpires as to who will be here and who will not. But if you had offered me a play-off place before the season began then I would have taken it. To have finished third in the table and to have gone out, there is an injustice, but that's the format."

Kelvin Davis: "When the dust has settled, we'll look back on this season and recognise just how good it's been. We had some great wins and for two months we were top of the table - against all expectation from the pundits who were predicting a mid-table slot when the year started. So we have proved a lot pf people wrong and all in all it has been a good year but at the moment it doesn't feel like that because losing out in the Play-Offs is, of course, massively disappointing."

Fabian Wilnis: "I have said my goodbyes to the boys in the dressing room. I hope it is not the end. I told them that I hope to see them all again on July 4 when we return for pre-season training, but I will just have to wait and see what the future holds for me. This time last year I didn't think I could be any more disappointed than I was then, after we were beaten at Upton Park. That was a horrible time. But this is worse. The belief was definitely there that we could do it this time, but it wasn't to be."

So once again this season Town have come up short when it really mattered - against our promotion rivals. Ipswich accumulated just eleven points out of a possible thirty against the other sides that finished in the top six. Our away form, especially in the run in, also undermined our attempt at automatic promotion, that back in mid-February (with us sitting pretty at the top of the Championship with a five points lead) looked an odds-on certainty. But your can't knock them for entertainment value. The division highest scores with 85 goals, a total of 141 goals in the 46 league games played, and at least four six-goal thrillers that I can think off. Watching Town may be unpredictable but certainly never dull!

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