IT’S hard to believe it’s more than  six years since our last meeting  with Barnsley.

And believe me, our defeat in the  League I play-off semi-final still  rankles!

We played really well at their  place to gain a 1-0 advantage  through Gary Taylor-Fletcher.

But it all went badly wrong back  at ours, when they won 3-1 to book  a final clash with  Swansea at the  Millennium  Stadium.

I still think it  should have been  us that went  through.

We should have  been more than a  goal to the good  from the first leg.

Perhaps we were  that little bit  complacent in the  second, but we still  got it back to 2-2  on aggregate when  Jon Worthington  scored, and from  there, we should  have gone on to  win, but ended up  losing 3-1.

Barnsley went on to beat  Swansea on penalties in the final,  and they’ve been in the  Championship ever since,  something we need to emulate  having finally got out of League I  after so long trying.

It will be good to go back to  Oakwell on Saturday, and there’s  always an edge to games between  their pair of us.

It’s seldom an  easy ground to  visit – the crowd  are close up and it  can be quite  partisan – but we’ll  take plenty of  support over there,  including all those  doing the Walk For  Pounds 2 to raise  funds for the Keep  It Up campaign.

Having done  such a good job at  Rochdale, Keith  Hill has built  a strong Barnsley  side who are  capable of beating  anyone in the  division on their  day – but then so  are we!

JORDAN RHODES will be  back in town tomorrow – and  I’m sure you’ll give him a  great reception!

He deserves it in my opinion  because he was a superb player for  Huddersfield Town on the pitch and  a fantastic ambassador off it.

You’d have to go a long way to  meet a nicer bloke, and one who  conducts himself so well, but when  he gets out on the field, he’s still a  ruthless finisher.

When Neil Warnock was  managing Town, he used to get on at  me to develop a nastier side to my  nature, but Jordan proves you don’t  have to be that way to succeed.

You seldom see him commit fouls  or get booked, yet just look at his  goalscoring record.

I played alongside a lot of different  strikers, but Jordan has to be right up  there in terms of his ability.