TWO former Burnley team-mates are on course to meet in the League Two play-off final at Wembley.

Michael Duff’s Cheltenham were 2-0 winners at Northampton in their semi-final first leg while Colchester, managed by John McGreal, have a 1-0 advantage over Exeter.

The one-time Turf Moor defensive duo will now look ahead to Monday’s second legs with the promotion decider on June 29.

Duff saw Charlie Raglan’s first-half header added to by Conor Thomas just three minutes from time at Sixfields to hand the Robins a significant advantage going into their home leg.

“You’d always take a 2-0 away from home, in any game, so to come to a tough team like Northampton and show the resilience we did, the lads were magnificent,” he said.

“I’m not sure how many times they put the ball in the box but it went in a lot and we stood up to be counted.

“I thought we were excellent in the way we went about it. We didn’t play as much good football as we’d have liked – we did it in pockets – but that’s credit to Northampton because they break the game up and it’s hard to get into any sort of rhythm or flow.

“But no-one can say we’re just a nice, pretty team because we do roll our sleeves up and we’ve got defenders who want to head it.

“I’m really happy with the shape of the team, the organisation and the mentality.”

McGreal lauded Cohen Bramall’s “special” winner as he curled in a fine free-kick from the edge of the area with nine minutes remaining of the first-leg tie at the JobServe Community Stadium to give the U’s the edge, ahead of the return game at St James Park.

He said: “Cohen has that in him and it was always going to take something special to win the game.

“It was a brilliant free-kick. It was great technique by Cohen for the goal and that’s something that he works on in training.

“I’m proud of what we’ve achieved in two weeks since coming back from lockdown.

“It’s bound to have affected both sides and I thought it was a close contest between two well-matched teams.

“It was a close game and it’s likely to be the same down there.

“They’ve made a long journey here today and it will be the same for us, on Monday.”