Town still have work left to do says Ricketts

Town hold the edge in their League One play-off semi-final against Sheffield United, having claimed a 2-1 win at Bramall Lane in Thursday’s first leg.

Swindon trailed 1-0 at the break but a Ricketts header and Nathan Byrne’s late winner put them in control ahead of tonight’s second leg at the County Ground.

Sections of the Blades camp have accused Mark Cooper’s men of celebrating as if the tie was over in South Yorkshire, but Ricketts says they know the job is far from finished.

“I’ve been in semi-finals before and people think they’ve done the job at halfway and laxed off mentally,” said Ricketts, who helped Hull City win promotion to the Premier League via the play-offs in 2008.

“We’re very grounded as a group and we know that it is halfway and we need to remain humble as we have achieved nothing yet.

“It’s fantastic to be in the lead but we said at half-time of the game ‘we’re 1-0 down but there’s an awful long way to go, stay in the game, it’s a quarter of the way through the tie.’ “Now we’re halfway and there’s still an awful lot of hard work to make sure we get the job done.

“We just need to make sure we recover right and prepare mentally and physically to make sure we are ready to go at the County Ground.

“We need to make sure we are fully prepared to put in a very good performance and hopefully that should lead to the result.”

Thursday’s first leg has allowed Town to identify Jamie Murphy as the Blades’ biggest threat but Ricketts says they need to stick to their own game plan in order to be successful.

“The way we try to play is to control the game and not make it a yo-yo game. If we can do that, it plays to our strengths,” said Ricketts.

“Some days that isn’t possible but we need to make sure we can play the other side of football and stay in the game.

“Their strength is Murphy. He’s a good player and has played very well for Sheffield United this year.

“We need to try to nullify that and if we can control the game that makes it easier.”