Striker Ryan Edmondson was typical of the confidence currently flowing through the veins at Brunton Park when we spoke to him about last Sunday’s game, and about the Saturday return fixture with the play-off semi-final fixture hanging in the balance.
A Harrogate born lad, he confirmed that it was good to get a run out at the relatively local venue of Valley Parade.
“It was nice, good to be able to go to a local place like Bradford,” he said. “It isn’t the easiest place to go, as we found out. They bring a lot of numbers and a lot of noise, and it’s a big club with a big stadium.
“As footballers you thrive on something like that when you’ve got 25,000 fans around you, so I think it was a real moment.
“I thought we handled the occasion well. I’ve watched the game back two or three times and as soon as the second half starts you can see that we came out firing. We had them on the back foot for the majority of it.
“Look, especially me, I should be scoring one or two, and that’s something I’ll try to rectify on Saturday. You take it as you go, sometimes they don’t go in, but you know we’ll do everything we can to put it right.”
Typically honest, he wanted to take time to look at the diving header which rocketed over the bar late in the game.
“It’s one of those where sometimes a delivery is too perfect for you,” he told us. “I was trying to anticipate it and it was a bit further in front of me than I thought. I’ve still got to head the ball at the same time as trying to readjust, so I do beat myself up on those things.
“You should be scoring those things as a striker. But you see in the Premier League every week that sometimes it just doesn’t go your way. For me on that night it didn’t, but you best believe that I’m doing everything I possibly can to make sure that any opportunities that come on Saturday do get put away.”
As we’ve seen on all three occasions so far when these teams have gone toe-to-toe, there’s very little that separates the combatants.
“I think every time we step out against Bradford it seems to be a good game,” he agreed. “They must be really good games to watch for the neutral.
“It’s one of those now where you think, what occasion could be better to play them? We’ve had the battle at Valley Parade, and I think 1-0 away from home for us is a good result.
“You see it all the time, where you get that home leg swing and all of a sudden things change. I think any sort of early goal on Saturday, or any goal during the game at all, things will change.
“It’s all in our hands so it’s up to us to go out on Saturday and be the team we know we can be. If we do that I have no doubt where we’ll end up.”
“And we know our fans can make a difference,” he added. “I watched the Luton game and I thought that Sunderland were going to nick it, and off they’d be going to Wembley.
“We saw in that game that when you’ve got the fans behind you it gives you a real lift and it is almost like playing with a twelfth man. I’ve got every single bit of confidence that we’ll have the fans doing that for us on Saturday and we’ll do what we can to put it to our advantage.”
“The fact is it’s been a long season and we’ve put blood, sweat and tears into it since we came back in June, and all we’ve done is just work hard,” he commented. “We’ll continue to do that this week, and we’ll certainly do that on Saturday.
“We really want to give more of it for the fans because they’ve been through some tough times for the club, and we’re at a stage where we’ve got a real base, real solidity and togetherness.
“To give them a trip down to London would be unbelievable. I think it’s something that they’ll never forget and it will stick in the history books. Hopefully we can make that happen.
“The gaffer has spoken to us and we’ve spoken to each other about what needs done. We know the job on our hands and, as we say, it is all actually in our hands.
“It’s whether we go out there and play the way that we know we can play, or if we shy away from it. I have no doubt that we’re not going to do that. We’re going to go at it full force and give it everything we can.”