Owusu has final say for brave Bees

"I honestly don't know if any of them has a deal lined up with another club, but it would be so easy for them to think 'I'm not going to be here next year, so I'll just look after myself.' But they go for it flat out all the time."

Chief among these must be top scorer Lloyd Owusu, whose heroic winning strike might yet be his parting gesture to the Brentford faithful.

But any idea of victory seemed hideously distant in only the second minute of last night's second leg.

Poor home defending left Andy Booth in acres of space, and although he could only manage a tame effort directly at Paul Smith, the goalkeeper contrived to let the head-height ball through his grasp.

Suddenly it all looked horribly familiar from the last day of the season proper when Reading denied Brentford automatic promotion, right down to the wall of blue-and-white clad away fans celebrating at the Ealing Road end.

Fortunately, Darren Powell soon stepped in to spare Smith a lifetime's nightmares.

Two minutes after a Stephen Hunt free-kick from 25 yards curled only just wide of the target, another Hunt set-piece met Powell's head. It gave the defender his second goal of the season, eight months after his first.

Then with the match barely 17 minutes old, Ivar Ingimarsson's effort was headed off the line by Chris Holland.

Anyone idling over their halftime meat pie missed Owusu's winner.

Forty-five seconds into the restart Ben Burgess was brought down just outside the area and Graham Barber prepared to blow for the foul.

But in that scant window of time Owusu pounced on the ball and although his sweeping effort boasted no great power, it beat Martyn Margetson's dive.

That left a very long 44 minutes - 47 including time added on - to be got through. Eleven thousand arteries hardened audibly around the ground as thoughts of the Reading game crowded Bees' minds - but Coppell was prepared.

He knew he had made an error in not bringing on Danny Boxall when Brentford were ahead against Reading, and he was not about to make the same mistake twice.

Two other factors did for Huddersfield - firstly Mr Barber's failure to give a penalty for Ijah Anderson's handball six minutes from time, and secondly the absence through suspension of the potentially lethal Leon Knight over both legs of the play-off.

Typically Coppell acknowledged both, while reflecting on his impoverished team's adventures this year.

"Money? What's that?" he smiled. "At the start of the season I didn't think we'd get this far. When other teams in play- off contention were buying players on deadline day, we were giving them away.

"We're still very much the poor relation in this play-off final, but being the underdog can be almost a cop-out if you think 'Well, we've had a go'.

"We'll be going there to finish the job rather than just enjoy the day. We've got to upset the formbook to get something out of the final - but we're there.

"There's only two of us left, and only one can go up."

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