Centre half Mark Creighton, many people’s man-of-the-match in the first leg at Rushden, believes Oxford United have done the first part of the job by avoiding defeat away, writes JON MURRAY.

But the second part – trying to finish the job by winning at home – will be just as tough.

“I think, without a doubt, we’d have taken a draw before the game on Thursday,” he said.

“We said we needed to go there and win or go there and not get beat, and we’ve done the second thing.

“It’s obviously back to our place and there’ll be 11,000-plus backing us – that’s a massive bonus for us.

“The fans were absolutely fantastic in the first match, all the lads said it, every single one of them. It was a massive, massive boost and it really drove us through the game.

“I thought we were excellent first half especially.

“The refereeing decision was a poor one – there’s no holding back, it was a foul on Chappy (Adam Chapman) and the ref was just five yards away – that gave Rushden a massive lift.

“How nice it would have been to go back to the Kassam with a 1-0 lead, but it wasn’t to be.”

In a bizarre sort of way, it might work better for the U’s to be starting the second leg at 1-1 rather than 1-0, because of the history of United’s previous occasion in the play-offs.

Three years ago, Oxford came back from Exeter with a 1-0 lead after the first leg, and even increased it to 2-0 in the first half of the second leg, only to concede twice in the second half at the Kassam Stadium and crash out on penalties.

Manager Chris Wilder says he hopes the outcome of the two-legged tie is not determined by a bad refereeing decision.

“I don’t want to be talking about the referee after the game, and Justin (Edinburgh) is the same. We just want a decent one, one that can handle the pressure,” he said.

“On Thursday, when I was looking at him (referee David Coote), the occasion looked too big for him.

“It just needs someone to stick their chest out and say yes, I can handle this. He was all over the place – for both teams.”

Today’s referee is Mark Brown, from East Yorkshire.