Boro striker looks forward to Saturday’s clash at Old Trafford

BORO striker Chris Beardsley says his team’s foremost challenge on Saturday will be to play the game and not the occasion if they are to win promotion to League One.

Beardsley, 27, doesn’t need reminding about the prize awaiting the club if they overcome Torquay at Old Trafford but says there is still plenty of hard graft left to put in before the dream of back-to-back promotions can be realised.

“I suppose that’s part one done. We got into the play-offs and we won the semi-final and now we can concentrate on Saturday,” said Beardsley after the match against Accrington.

“We’ll prepare for it like any other game, we’ll do our homework on them (Torquay) and obviously we’ve played them twice already this season so we’ll take positives from what we know about them and we’ll be thorough.

“Torquay have had just as much as much as us (success), they’ve been promoted like us so I’m sure they’ll be a tough prospect. It’s a play-off final so it’s going to be hard not to play the occasion instead of the game which is what wins it for you.”

Beardsley came off the bench to score the winning goal against Accrington in last Friday’s semi-final second leg, and the tireless frontman says he was just pleased to get back on the goal trail after finding the net just once previously in what has been an injury-plagued season for him.

He added: “It’s been frustrating at times because I’ve had operations, injections so it’s been a long hard season and it was just nice to put the seal on the two-legged victory and now we can look forward to the final.”

Boro go into the final on the back of two excellent performances against Accrington, and Beardsley insists he and his teammates will take great confidence from those matches going into the clash with Torquay.

“This is a hard place to come, they’re a good footballing side,” he commented on becoming only the fourth side to win at Accrington this season.

“Players like Jimmy Ryan, Terry Gornell, Luke Joyce – they can handle the football and they’ve been good at home so this was no mean feat.

“We’ve developed and matured as players. It took us a while to get used to the level but I think that’s what we’ve done.”