Exeter City 0-2 Ipswich Town: Freddie Ladapo & Marcus Harness help Tractor Boys win

Freddie Ladapo celebrates his early goal at Exeter

Ipswich Town closed the gap at the top of League One with a comfortable win at Exeter City in Saturday's early kick-off.

In-form Freddie Ladapo headed his ninth goal of the season to break the deadlock and Marcus Harness glanced home the second midway through the second half to decide the first league meeting of these sides in more than 65 years.

The points made it 23 from 10 away games for Kieran McKenna's side and took them within two points of leaders Plymouth, who were held at Burton later on Saturday.

It was an eighth defeat in 19 league games for City, who slipped to 11th.

Ipswich were irresistible in the early stages and Harness saw a close-range prod instinctively saved by Jamal Blackman inside 10 minutes, but less than a minute later the visitors were ahead.

With the City defence caught napping, Harness nodded a diagonal Sam Morsy cross back across goal for Ladapo to stoop and head into the bottom corner to score for the fourth straight away game.

Grecians defender Alex Hartridge saw a near-post volley turned around the post by Christian Walton on 22 minutes and Jack Sparkes lashed over following a corner soon after, but goalmouth opportunities were few and far between for the rest of the half.

Blackman tipped over a dipping strike from Cameron Humphreys and saved a near-post header from Ladapo just before the hour but the crucial second goal came when Harness glanced home a header from a Leif Davis corner to spark wild scenes among the 1,208 away fans behind the goal, many of whom had set off from Suffolk before 06:00 GMT to make kick-off.

City saw appeals for a penalty dismissed moments later, after a barge in the box by Davis on sub Sam Nombe.

Blackman denied Kyle Edwards a third in the final 15 minutes while Tim Dieng fired over and Pierce Sweeney swiped a late chance off-target from an angle for the hosts, as Town returned to winning ways after back-to-back draws in League One.

Exeter boss Gary Caldwell told BBC Radio Devon:

"We said before the game they are very good - I'm pretty sure they'll get promoted. That was the best of what League One has to offer, but in terms of performance levels I think we were a bit off where we have been.

The intensity of our press wasn't quite what it has been but I was delighted with the players' effort and application. They gave everything.

"We have to learn the small lessons that we've been taught today. It's never good conceding goals but the second goal is from a set-piece and we've done a lot of work this week on defending set-pieces. It wasn't even a great delivery but we lose our man in the box. We were very much in the game at that point and thinking about changes to really go for it. Once it goes 2-0 it's a big ask from there."

Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna:

"It was a solid, professional performance where we controlled the game in all aspects, really. It was a good bright start where we took the ball, dominated possession, created a couple of good chances and got the first goal.

"There were moments when we held our shape really well defensively and that was important, we'd worked on it and spoken about it during the week.

"There were lots of good things, of course it was important to get the two goals, the clean sheet and a good win."

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