"I feel brilliant. It's a great feeling.The lads are really elated and I will allow them to have a drink tonight to celebrate before our Player of the Year Dinner on Monday, which will now be alcohol free for the players.
"All credit to Walsall who came out and pushed us all away, they really went at us for the first 15 minutes of the second half.Once we got through that I realised they couldn't keep it up for the rest of the second half.The sending off played a major part in allowing us to get the second goal and then look quite comfortable afterwards.Although there was a great save from Nick Colgan towards the end when we tried to self destruct, we messed around with it around the half way line and nearly paid dearly for it, but that is what Nick has been there for all season, he's been fantastic and that's why he is the Player of the Year.
"We asked the lads to treat today like a Cup Final, it was a one-off game and we couldn't waste any minutes and I don't think the lads did.In the first half I thought we were the far better side and in the second half, as I say, they came out for the first 25 minutes where they had us on the rack a little, but the lads came back into the game and got the penalty.I looked around and saw Rico on the bench and thought "who's going to take the penalty?", all the bench thought that Stephen McPhail should take it, but Nardy tucked it away great.
"We now have Huddersfield in the play-off semi final, which added to that is also a big local derby.We have had two tremendous games against them during the season and probably we deserve more out of the last one, well, we certainly did deserve more.It's going to be great and we are all very much looking forward to it.We are very confident now we have reached this stage.
"We are going to train on Tuesday and Wednesday, ready for the game on Thursday.We are giving the players Monday off as they have said they prefer to train two days on the trot rather than have their day off on Tuesday.This way we get two great days training before the game. We've listened to them and we will prepare as we normally do and we will be ready for Huddersfield."
Andy Ritchie was talking to www.barnsleyfc.co.uk