By Ben Campbell
Wanderers will play Stockport in the playoff semi-finals after Paul Lambert's side beat Bradford City 2-1 at Adams Park.
Goals from Delroy Facey and Leon Knight gave the Blues a 2-0 lead within the first 25 minutes before Luke Medley reduce the arrears on the stroke of half-time after finishing from the spot.
The game started very brightly with both teams looking to open the scoring and the first meaningful attack brought about the first goal on six minutes.
17-year-old Matty Phillips, who was starting his first senior game for the club, picked up the ball on the halfway line, beat two men and played a lovely ball to Delroy Facey who finished superbly from 15 yards to give Wanderers the perfect start.
Delroy and Leon Knight, who formed such a formidable partnership at Huddersfield in 2001/02, seemed to have the beating of the Bradford defence which included veteran defender David Wetherall.
The Bradford legend was playing his final game of his career at Adams Park but he couldn't get near Facey on 12 minutes as he linked up excellently with Sergio Torres. The Argentinean took the ball in his stride although he flashed his shot wide from 18 yards.
Matty Phillips was tremendous down the right-hand side throughout the 90 minutes and he was involved in most of Wanderers' attacks, the latest a great in swinging corner that was headed down by Mike Williamson into the path of Dave McCracken but unfortunately for the skipper his header cannoned back off the bar.
However, the next Wanderers attack would produce a two-goal cushion for Paul Lambert's side. The combination of a Phillips corner and a 'Willo' header again caused problems for the Bradford back four and Leon Knight was the first to react from 6 yards to fire past Scott Loach in the Bantams goal on 25 minutes.
Wanderers continued to dominate possession, but out of nothing Bradford were awarded a penalty. A clever ball down the line from right-back Ben Starosta found David Brown and the young striker was brought down by keeper Frank Fielding two minutes before the break.
Luke Medley stepped up and sent the on-loan Blackburn goalkeeper the wrong way to reduce the deficit and somehow Bradford had a glimmer of hope.
Bradford started the second half full of confidence and peppered the Wanderers on a couple of occasions in the opening ten minutes, but Fielding was up to anything the Bantams threw at him.
Despite the early second half dominance from the visitors Wanderers went closest to regaining their two-goal cushion. Gary Holt made a great surge into the box, played in Facey and unluckily for the ex-Bolton man his shot went straight down Loach's throat from 20 yards.
Within a minute of Wanderers nearly doubling the lead, Bradford could have been level. Frank Fielding pulled off a world class save diving to his left to deny Omar Daley after the right-winger had cut inside and unleashed a tremendous effort from 20 yards.
Mike Williamson has been known for a venture forward but I bet many of the Adams Park faithful weren't expecting what happened on 70 minutes. The centre-back surged forward and then proceeded to do keep-ups beating four Bradford men.
And 'Willo' was at it again five minutes later after he showed trickery to beat Mark Bowen on the right-hand side before playing in Sergio Torres.
With just over ten minutes left Wanderers made their second and third substitutions with Stefan Oakes and Scott McGleish replacing the excellent duo of Facey and Phillips.
The game then petered out somewhat in the last ten minutes but a confident, injury-free Wanderers squad going into the playoffs against Stockport is a real threat.
For Paul Lambert's view on the win - click here.
