Was something put in East Anglia's water supply during the international break?

The way that Norwich City and Ipswich Town restarted their Championship campaigns at the weekend suggests that players from both clubs may have been poisoned by the opposite of a performance enhancing drug, a substance that dampens the reflexes and makes it difficult to get the body going.

While Canaries fans were still coming to terms with their latest farcical defeat at QPR which began with Martin Olsson getting sent off after briefly mistaking Loftus Road for Twickenham by apparently trying to score a try after a first minute scramble inside his own penalty area, news came in that Ipswich Town had fallen a goal down to Nottingham Forest in the day's late kick off after just 17 seconds.

It was almost as if our Suffolk neighbours were trying to make the ability to implode as quickly as possible the latest yardstick by which East Anglian superiority should be measured.

This isn't going to turn into one of those cheap point scoring Norfolk v Suffolk exercises, let's face it, there hasn't been much to shout about at either end of the A140 recently. Both Alex Neil and Mick McCarthy find themselves under pressure from an increasingly disgruntled fan base but for very different reasons.

While the QPR defeat further highlighted Norwich City's defensive woes and only served to underline how their undoubted potential is too often undermined by careless, sloppy and often downright abysmal defensive play, the main complaint at Portman Road is that life is too boring.

Fifteen years in the Championship with no ups or downs is almost too much to take, especially when their 17 games so far this season have included just 31 goals for and against.

Norwich City have scored only two fewer than that themselves. The trouble is they have also conceded 29 goals and so still have the third worst defensive record in the division.

Could it be that the two clubs would be better served if they swapped managers? City are crying out for a masterclass in defensive organisation. There's been enough this season to suggest that the Canaries have enough attacking talent in the squad to cause problems for any other side in the division, they just need to get a bit more miserly at the back.

By contrast Ipswich Town want some excitement. City have been many things this season but they certainly haven't been dull as that total of 58 goals in 17 games so far proves.

When Alex Neil arrived at Carrow Road two seasons ago, he quickly found a way of developing a fearless attacking style that would eventually take Norwich to promotion via a memorable day at Wembley having despatched their Suffolk rivals over two legs in the semi-final.

Perhaps the best chance of getting a repeat of that East Anglian play-off derby in 2017 would be if big Mick could spend some time drilling the Norwich defence while Neil turns his steely glare on the Ipswich dressing room in an attempt to get them to lighten up and attack a bit more.

There's no more modern way of working than getting Norfolk and Suffolk to share services. Politics, police and even the local media in the two counties are being asked to come closer together than ever before. Should football show the way?

This is, needless to say, a tongue in cheek suggestion. Asking a yellow and green diehard to share anything other than pithy insults with a blue and white opponent would be as awkward as that meeting between Barrack Obama and Donald Trump the day after the US Election but it did come up in one of those hypothetical conversations that helps pass the miles on the way back from QPR as I tried to process Norwich's latest defeat with my BBC Radio Norfolk colleague Rob Butler and Michael Bailey of this very paper.

I suppose it shows just how deep the head scratching has now gone as Norwich's malaise extends to four straight Championship defeats, threatening to make a mockery of their status as pre-season promotion favourites.

City's issues are put into perspective

Norwich City are not the only big sporting name in Norfolk with a few issues at the moment.

It was a pleasure last week to sit down with swimmer Jessica-Jane Applegate's mum, Dawn. Jess is still only 20 years old but should have her status as a Norfolk treasure secured for all time by the fact she was the only person from the county to win a gold medal at London 2012. I was lucky enough to be poolside at the Paralympics commentating on that race. She gave us our only golden post box.

There was some bad news for Jessica-Jane last week when British Swimming, the sport's governing body, announced that she will no longer be on the top level of funding in 2017.

There's no argument against that judgement from the Applegate family. The rules clearly state that to retain the £21,000 per year handout, swimmers needed to achieve a personal best in 2016. Jess didn't do that but did manage two silver medals and a bronze at the Paralympics in Rio despite an injury hit year.

The sad truth is that with her funding set to drop to £11,000 from January, Jessica-Jane is very close to having to give up competing.

Swimming is an expensive sport, Dawn clocked up no fewer than 33,000 miles last year driving her daughter to and from training twice a day and to various races. The hope is that a major sponsor or group of backers can be found between now and Christmas to help Jess.

It would be a travesty if somebody so young and talented had to quit her sport with so many years ahead of them. It certainly puts into perspective the problems of leaving people unmarked at corners. For some, the sporting challenges are greater off the pitch than on it.

Support Jess at justgiving.com/crowdfunding/JessicaJaneApplegateMBE