Ipswich were made painfully aware yesterday that, without Kevin Beattie and Allan Hunter, they are only half the side they can be. Forest meanwhile, reminded the rest of the First Division that half measures simply will not do against them again this season.

Essentially, Forest's addition of the Charity Shield to the League Championship and League Cup trophies was a sharp lesson in the art of finishing. Nothing could have been more economical than their scoring, five goals from just about as many chances.

Ipswich felt the loss of their other injured FA Cup Final heroes, Osborne and Geddis, marginally less than the absence of Hunter and Beattie at the heart of their defence, and they often prised Forest open in the first half.

Yet they could never get the better of Shilton, as sure and majestic as ever he was during Forest's championship season.

Many of Forest's scoring chances, it must be said, came gift wrapped from an Ipswich defence in which Osman and Wark made uneasy deputies for Hunter and Beattie. Nor were they helped to settle by the somewhat naive defensive tactics formulated to deal with the left wing trickery of Forest's Robertson.

For some reason, Ipswich elected to leave the Scottish winger entirely to Burley instead of copying Liverpool's effective tactic in the League Cup final of having a midfield player pick him up in his deep-lying position first.

As a result, the full back was drawn far enough forward for the sharp and elusive Woodcock to exploit the space in the left hand quarter of the field that he loves and to embarrass poor Walk beyond measure.

Woods, tormentor of Arsenal here in May and potentially a winger every bit as dangerous as Robertson, was allowed little or no freedom by the pace and anticipation of Anderson, another Forest player to recapture last season's urgent form immediately.

Against opponents of the quality of Gemmill, O'Neill and McGovern, the bravery of Talbot and Gates could not disguise Parkin's inexperience or Ipswich's lack of impetus in midfield; and, generally speaking, the East Anglian side were unable to match the mobility and variety of Forest's play.

Only in the first half did Ipswich look remotely capable of upsetting the odd's this time, as they had done in the FA Cup final. As Ipswich found a weakness at the centre of the Forest defence, where, surprisingly, Lloyd was preferred to Needham, Shilton had to make two of his superhuman saves to keep out a dipping volley from Parkin and a close-range shot by Talbot.

Barrett was required to make a late, blocking tackle, too, as Mariner dribbled through that soft spot in the Forest defence, as Whymark's success in reaching a Woods centre first was further evidence that Forest will have to tighten up at the back for sterner tests to come, among them that epic First Round European Cup tie against Liverpool next month.

All of Ipswich's first half enterprise in attack, however, was undone by mistakes made behind them. In the 10th minute, for instance, the Ipswich defence gave the ball away in their own area and O'Neill punished them at once with a perfectly placed shot.

Then, 17 minutes later, Robertson was allowed to run across the edge of the Ipswich area. His final pass was blocked, but Barrett headed the ball forward for Withe to head over the advancing Cooper, while the Ipswich defence waited in vain for a offside decision.

From then on the game was a triumphal procession by Forest. Lloyd made it 3-0 a minute into the second half from Robertson's free kick, after Withe's dummy had bemused the Ipswich defence further, and O'Neill pulled the ball down to volley the fourth goal in the 75th minute, after Robertson had again beaten his man on the left and crossed.

The man he beat was Parkin, who had a last tried to come to the aid of the hard pressed Burley. Ipswich, however, seemed intent on giving every possible assistance to the winger who hardly had a chance in the World Cup to show what he could do for Scotland.

Their were only three minutes left to play when Osman tried to find Burley with a pass. Shell-shocked perhaps, the Ipswich full back unwisely waited for the ball to come to him, and Robertson's interception sent him off an running once more.

This time the scourge of Ipswich did not go to his left as usual but dummied inside Burley to beat Cooper with an angled, rising shot and give a spectacular final touch to Forest's early show of strength.

Colin Malam (Daily Telegraph)