An assured victory over one of our play-off rivals, Derby County, on Saturday showed we were worthy challengers for a top-six finish.

But any lingering aspirations that we could make an unlikely push for the top-two in the second half of the season were promptly put in place by Tuesday's defeat at Birmingham City.

Tomorrow will see the final part of the intensive one-week testing of our credentials, when fourth-place Sheffield United visit Portman Road, which will spotlight whether we're real contenders or probably just pretenders for the super six at the top of the Championship.

Town dominated Saturday's game against Derby from start to finish and the only real fears were, with the Charlton game still fresh in our minds, was we could get caught out by a sucker-punch due to our profligate finishing.

Fortunately lightning didn't strike twice and we secured a convincing
2-0 win.

It is always hard to decipher whether the manner of the victory was due to Town playing so well or Derby playing so badly but what was clear was the growing strength of our midfield.

After all of Jim Magilton's tinkering, he finally seems to have established, what we hope, is a settled quartet of Norris, Shumulioski, Garvan and Ambrose.

The victory over Derby did expose, once again, a lack of quality in front of goal and that was held up for all to see against Birmingham.

We may now have the quantity of experienced strikers in Stead, Counago, Walters and Lisbie that would have made us envious a year ago. But in no way do we have the multi-million pound quality of City's McFadden, Phillips and Bent, with Jerome and O'Conner waiting in the wings.

It was frustrating to see Town's challenge swatted away in 14 minutes at St Andrews but it was hardly surprising when you compared their lengthy list of expensive signings against our squad, even with Marcus Evans' input.

Sheffield United squad have also splashed the cash in the last 18 months in the Championship but the feelings are they are a closer rival than Alex McLeish's men.

The Blades will prove a big test and it is still far too early in the season for any result to have too damning an impact on our season.

But by 5pm tomorrow, we will have another clue if our push for the top six is going to be relatively smooth or a struggle in the second half of the season.