Joe Royle's side hit back to maintain their unbeaten league record in 2006 after Burnley had taken the lead in the 45th minute through Michael Ricketts.

Alan Lee levelled for Town before Matt Richards settled the points from the spot seven minutes from time after the award of a controversial penalty.

Burnley's misery was compounded when Wayne Thomas was sent off for contesting the decision.

Ricketts opened the scoring after being put clear by a flick from Gifton Noel-Williams. He steered his right-foot shot wide of Shane Supple and was then booked for inciting the home crowd.

Lee levelled in the 63rd minute after meeting a Darren Currie cross from the left, turning a defender eight yards from goal and firing home.

Lee also won the penalty when he was adjudged to have been brought down by Michael Duff. Thomas, booked earlier, was shown a yellow card for dissent.

He took his time to leave the field before Richards beat Brian Jensen from the spot with a powerful left-foot shot.

Jensen also made two fine saves to deny Lee, who had earlier headed against the post, in the closing stages.

Royle said: "I don't think anyone can disagree that we deserved to win. We had 24 shots, some of them high wide and glorious but there were two that counted.

"Burnley defended well, John McGreal was excellent and I warned my lads that it would be a hard game against stubborn opponents.

"Five weeks ago our fans thought we were going to be relegated so it's great to see this revival."

Royle admitted that the penalty decision was fortunate.

"It looked soft," he said. "The challenge looked minimal. It was perhaps less of a penalty than a handball incident in the first half.

"Maybe these things level out because we conceded a penalty like that against Leeds."

Royle was full of praise for Lee, adding: "He has not had a bad game or even a bad half since he joined us.

"He is deceptively fast and when we find the right partner, and all the possibilities are injured at the moment, I'm sure we will see even more from him.

"He has come here after a difficult time at Cardiff and immediately settled in. You take a chance with what you know and what you see in the transfer market and it's nice when it comes off.

"But for a horrendous run of injuries I think we would have been in or around the play-off places already."

Burnley manager Steve Cotterill said: "It was very disappointing to be beaten by a penalty that, in my opinion from where I sat, wasn't a penalty. That decided the game.

"Michael Duff said that Alan Lee told him it wasn't a foul as they came off the field.

"We went ahead with a great finish from Michael Ricketts but then conceded two bad goals. If we had cleared the ball as we should have done the penalty issue would not have happened.

"Ipswich have some good young players and their crowd support is fantastic. They were on Brian Jensen's back from start to finish."

Asked about the booking of Ricketts, Cotterill said: "I didn't really see what happened."

The sending off of Thomas was also contentious.

Cotterill added: "He told me he never said anything to the referee for his second yellow card although he had a silly booking for his first one. It will be interesting to see what appears on the referee's report.

"We have had a lot of changes at our club. Every time we find someone who scores goals we sell him. It is fantastic to be like Ipswich and be able to dip into the Academy to bring players through."

Sporting Life