Town boss Jim Magilton made the worst possible start to his managerial career with three League defeats and a first round Carling Cup exit at Peterborough, but has since overseen four wins in those six games.
In three of those matches his lion-hearted side have come from behind and they did so again to beat a disappointing Sunderland side, that failed to register a single shot on target in the 90 minutes.
The visitors also ended with ten men in a match of nine yellow cards - two of them handed to winger Ross Wallace who was dismissed with just four minutes to go.
A Mark Noble shot in the first minute and a glancing header by Jon Macken were all there was to report in a dull opening 20 minutes before the match caught fire.
Dan Harding launched into a two-footed challenge on Wallace, admittedly winning the ball, but it was a surprise when referee Mick Russell took no action, bringing Keane and his staff racing off the bench and onto the field.
Three minutes later, Chris Brown was fortunate to escape with just a yellow after flattening Sito Castro with a raised arm in an aerial challenge and the game became quite spiteful for a while.
Wallace also floored Sito, Dean Whitehead leapt into Noble and Stan Varga felled Gavin Williams, all earning yellow cards before the interval.
In between there was some football played, with Sunderland ahead on 29 minutes when Jason De Vos stabbed a curling Wallace free-kick into his own net after Richard Naylor was adjudged to have fouled Brown.
Ipswich were level on 32 minutes when Darren Currie curled a free-kick beyond Ben Alnwick after Whitehead's foul on Noble.
Brown could have volleyed Sunderland in front on the whistle but fired wide after a De Vos clearance fell perfectly for him.
The second half began quietly before Wallace curled a 25-yard free-kick just wide.
Ipswich survived that scare and took control of the game with two goals in two minutes from Republic of Ireland striker Alan Lee.
On 64 minutes he looped a header over Ben Alnwick after Neill Collins had failed to clear a Currie cross, and then he latched onto a towering header forward by De Vos to shrug off Varga, round Alnwick and slide the ball home.
In between the two goals, a dangerous Wallace cross which had own-goal written all over it was scraped away superbly from inside the six-yard box by Naylor.
Town were happy to sit on their lead and attack on the break from there on, with Sunderland lacking the guile to break them down - too many of the visitors attacks ending with veteran forward Dwight Yorke being caught offside.
It looked like petering out tamely until the 86th minute when Wallace barged over home sub Billy Clarke and was sent off, although the decision was a little harsh as Clarke would have struggled to reach the loose ball.