AFC Sudbury skipper Reece Harris says results against Heybridge Swifts this season are irrelevant ahead of Saturday's play-off final

They may have been the only side AFC Sudbury did not beat in their regular league season but captain Reece Harris believes facing his former club Heybridge Swifts in Saturday’s home play-off final will have no bearing on things.

The Yellows came from behind twice in Tuesday’s Pitching In Isthmian League North Division Play-off Semi-Final to beat a Grays Athletic side that led 2-1 before a controversial sending off and penalty incident left them with 10 men for more than half-an-hour.

And it was Harris’ low 22-yard free kick which proved to be Sudbury’s match winner in the 3-2 victory to send them through to Saturday’s straight promotion shootout decider with Swifts, who won 2-0 at Lowestoft Town.

While they had taken three points from former manager Jamie Godbold’s Trawler Boys, it was a result left them facing an outfit they are yet to have got the better of this term, though Harris thinks that is largely irrelevant.

“It’s just another game to tick off and get the win,” said the player who has had three spells at Heybridge, joining Sudbury from the Essex outfit from a brief third one in mid-September, 2018.

“We’ve lost away and drawn here but in these games what happens during the league tends to go out of the window.

“You could probably say we’ve beat Grays comfortably in the league twice this season but as you saw today in that one-off shootout game anything can happen if you start well and the players are together.

“We’ve got the players (to beat Heybridge), even in training everyone wants to win.

“It will be good and everyone will be ready for it and fired up to just ge t it over the line.”

His last spell at Heybridge, where his senior playing career began, ended on a somewhat bitter note with Harris having previously told the Free Press a parting shot on his exit on the club’s official Twitter account about how they had paid for his rehabilitation from an ankle injury was simply ‘not true’.

However, the player who tasted play-off semi-final heartbreak with Swifts – though also won promotion to the National League South with Concord Rangers – had nothing but good words to say about the club now managed by former Southend United boss Steve Tilson ahead of Saturday’s decider.

“I know Heybridge will be bringing a good crowd,” he said.

“Obviously they’re a good side. They’ve had a few good little runs this season and had a few patchy spells but fair play to them, they’ve made it to the final and no matter what you say both teams deserve to get there throughout the course of the season. It should be a cracker.”

Asked what part their home crowd, holding that advantage as the second-placed team, can play, he said:

“As you’ve seen tonight the young lads have come down whether they’ve been from the academy or wherever and we’ve had some really good crowds making noise behind the goal recently and when we got back to 2-2, I know they were down to 10 men, but it pushes us over the line.

“Effectively that is a plus of finishing where you do in the league as you get that home advantage.”

Sudbury, who finished 19 points ahead of fourth-placed Switfts, have only been a Step 3 side on one previous brief occasion, in 2016/17, following winning the title under Godbold ahead of relegation.

Heybridge include former Yellows Rob Harvey and Rhys Henry as well as summer target Matt Price.

Reggie Lambe, one of Tuesday's goalscorers, is unavailable for the final due to a pre-planned trip to visit his family in Bermuda, but fellow central midfielder Jake Turner is back available after running the London Marathon.