Captain's blog

I said in my last Captain's blog ahead of last Thursday's away match at Cardiff that it was about us working hard to achieve a positive result to bring back to the Boleyn Ground for tonight's second leg.

We did that, but believe me when I say, not one of us is resting on our laurels or anything. It is a cliché that many of you may have heard this week, but it is only half-time in this tie and we still have a job to do.

Yes, we go into tonight's match with confidence. I think we went to Cardiff and did a great job, a professional job. We have got ourselves two goals up, but it is only half-way through and we have got to make sure we have the same professionalism tonight to see us through again.

We have to make sure we respect the fact that Cardiff have got some good players that can make things happen on the night. We have to make sure we are on top of that, on top of our game and we will get through it.

As I said, it was a team effort where everyone worked their socks off to get a result but we were all delighted to see JC - Jack - get a brace on the night. He fully deserved his goals and you can see what it meant.

I am sure if we have anything like the fantastic support we had away from home in Cardiff on Thursday that the Boleyn Ground will be deafening here tonight.

We are all raring to go and looking forward to it and we hope that all of you are too and will let us know that with the noise you make in cheering us on. It is something that is also said a lot, but when we played up at Cardiff we could hear all of you and it does give you that extra little boost.

Throughout the season, here and away from home, you have bossed it, hats off to all of you.

All we are asking is for one last push tonight here at the Boleyn Ground to help us to get to Wembley. We are not looking too far ahead, we know we still have a job to do and Cardiff will try and make it as tough as possible, it is not over and we know it.

We have to make sure we are professional enough to see the game through and get the result we need and the thought of seeing all of your happy smiling faces again in a couple of weeks at Wembley will be one of the things we will use to try and get over the line.

Come on you Irons!

Kevin Nolan
Captain