Koumas strike lifts Cardiff into play-off places

Cardiff 2 Ipswich 1

Jason Koumas’ last-minute strike broke the hearts of 10-man Ipswich to give the Welsh side a dramatic 2-1 home victory and three points which propelled them into the Coca-Cola Championship play-off places.

Cardiff held a single-goal lead until the 85th minute when Jimmy Juan curled a 25-yard free-kick into the corner of the net to equalise Michael Ricketts’ first-half strike and seemingly salvage an unlikely point for Joe Royle’s battling side.

However, a thoroughly entertaining match took another twist at the death when Jason Koumas, on a season-long loan from West Brom, thumped the ball past Ipswich’s goalkeeper Lewis Price to buoy the Ninian Park faithful.

Cardiff had a number of gilt-edged chances to have the match wrapped up long before Koumas sealed the points, but a combination of superb Price goalkeeping and some poor finishing made sure Ipswich were still in the contest until the final minutes of the match.

Price was not the only young star shining brightly on a bitterly cold night in south Wales.

Cameron Jerome was a constant menace and revelled in the space afforded to him by the dismissal of Fabian Wilnis in the 13th minute, when the Dutchman was adjudged to have hauled him down in the penalty area after miscontrolling a Ricketts flick on.

Referee Andre Marriner had no hesitation in awarding the spot-kick and quickly showed Wilnis the red card, leaving Joe Royle’s men with a mountain to climb.

Ricketts stepped up to take the kick, using a stuttering run up in an attempt to fool Price. It seemed to unsettle the striker more than the Ipswich stopper who dived to his right and palmed his poor effort away.

However, Ricketts made amends on the half-hour mark when Jerome managed to force a mistake from the Ipswich defence and take control of the ball.

Price saved superbly from Ricketts from point-blank range in the second half as Cardiff upped the tempo and created a number of good chances.

But Ipswich rode the storm and in the 85th minute grabbed an unlikely equaliser.

Young substitute Billy Clarke’s run was ended just outside the penalty area by Jeff Whitley. Juan took the resulting free-kick, curling the ball superbly over the wall and into the net past the despairing dive of Neil Alexander.

However, the game was far from finished.

Ipswich defender Luis Castro Sito failed to deal with a ball into the area in the final minute, allowing Koumas to take the ball and beat two defenders.

However, the Welsh international slipped and had seemingly wasting his chance, only to regain his footing and lash the ball past Price for the winner.