Shrewsbury v Rotherham United: Wood hoping to bridge 13-year gap between play-off finals

Thirteen years on from helping the Owls to promotion in the Millennium Stadium, the defender is now one of those elder statesmen himself as Rotherham United head to Wembley looking to clinch promotion to the Championship.

“I was buzzing on the day in Cardiff but you have to keep a calm head,” said the Millers captain.

“It was red hot and afterwards I was out on my feet, totally drained. That is what I have warned the lads about that. It doesn’t matter what the conditions are like, you will be drained towards the end.

“I am also telling the young lads of 19 and 20 that there are quite a lot of players who go through their entire career and never play in a play-off final.

“This might be my last one but that might be the same for the other lads, even the younger ones. Look at me, I have had a big gap between my two finals. That is why we have to take advantage of this.”

Wood made the all-important breakthrough in the play-off semi-final second leg against Scunthorpe United.

After the Iron had snatched a dramatic late equaliser at Glanford Park, the first goal in the return was always going to be important and the Millers captain duly delivered with a stoppage-time header at the end of the first half. Will Vaulks duly added a second to ensure a season that had seen Wood forced to spend time on the sidelines after falling out of favour has the chance to end on a huge high.

“I have been counting down every single day to Wembley,” added the 32-year-old. “It is an event I will savour and take in as much as I can.”

Wood believes the team spirit that Paul Warne has worked so hard to foster since that punishing pre-season trip to Austria can be the difference tomorrow.

“I would imagine every player has been dropped at one stage this season,” added the defender, in his fourth season at Rotherham.

“That is the manager’s job but the lads have just got on with it. I have been the same, a couple of times I have been dropped. But you just want the best for the team and if you aren’t in the team, you just have to fight your way back in. The four wingers we have got typifies it.

“We don’t know the team (for tomorrow) and they have all been on fire. They all want that shirt.”

As for Wood’s previous taste of a League One play-off final in 2005, he recalls: “I had the old heads helping me, Lee Bullen and Paul Heckingbottom.

“They talked to me all the way through the game at Cardiff. They were also a help beforehand, stressing how simple football can be. And how it was important not to over-complicate things just because it is a final.

“I had ‘Bully’ at right-sided centre half and ‘Hecky’ at left-back, me in the middle. Even just turning to look at them helped, it was reassuring.

“I hope the lads look at me like that. And, if we are under the cosh, I can smash someone. No, forget that, I shouldn’t really use that term.

“Let’s say, ‘Make a good tackle’. Or just do a good header, whatever. It would be great if the lads looked at that and thought, ‘Woody doing that means we will be all right’.”

What Wood does not plan on doing is copying Heckingbottom’s post-match celebrations, the future Leeds United manager having taken advantage of a post-match traffic jam on the M4 to swipe the trophy and jump out of the emergency exit. The next time the rest of the Wednesday players saw Heckingbottom, he was sitting in a supporter’s car with a can of beer in hand.

“I am not sure if I will be like that,” laughs the Millers captain. “Even though those celebrations were great. That is what you want in football, it is what the game is all about.

“I watched the Liverpool lads when they qualified for the Champions League final. They are multi-millionaires and money is irrelevant.

“But winning was all that mattered to them.”