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Kyle Dempsey has urged Wanderers to make sure they give a true account of themselves in this year’s play-off semi-finals.
Ian Evatt’s side came up short in their pursuit of a top-two spot and now face a two-legged contest against Barnsley for the second year in a row.
The first leg will be played at Oakwell on Friday evening before the return game a week on Tuesday (May 7) to decide which team progresses to Wembley to meet either Peterborough United or Oxford United.
Wanderers came up short 12 months ago, strangled over the course of two tight games Dempsey felt they struggled to make an impact upon.
“We can’t look at what happened last year, we have to focus on ourselves and what we do this time,” he said. “We have to turn up on the day and make sure we’re ‘us’ because we’re more than confident.
“Last year over the two legs we didn’t show enough of ourselves, it was just spells. We need to go in there all guns blazing and take care of business.
“The fact the second leg is at home is huge. We’ll have to manage both legs and not give ourselves a mountain to climb after the first one.
“We know when we play to our standard that we can beat anyone on our day and that is the mindset we need to take into the game now.”
Wanderers finished third after Saturday's 3-3 draw at Peterborough, five points behind Derby who did their job by beating Carlisle United on the final day to clinch second spot behind Portsmouth.
Dempsey feels there is no sense in dwelling in the disappointment of missing out on their top target of automatic promotion.
“I don’t think we can look at it that way,” he said. “We can say we’ve dropped points here and there but the main thing is that we weren’t good enough as a collective over a 46-game season and Derby were. They are up and they deserve it because there are times when we have thrown games away, allowed it to get away from us. We have been the ones chasing.
“We have to look at ourselves now, focus on the play offs and what we can do to win them.”
Dempsey had opened the scoring with an early header, with Dion Charles doubling the lead from the penalty spot. But Derby had also forged ahead early, so the expected drama on the final day never really had a chance to materialise.
Nevertheless, Evatt’s side did get a good look at a side they could potentially face again at Wembley, and Dempsey hopes now that they can take the positive aspects of the game into Friday’s night’s first leg in South Yorkshire.
“All in all I think it was a very good game,” he said. “Two sides went toe-to-toe and we can only take positivity into the play-offs now.
“We knew all we could do was win, and by two or three, and then hope for a result there but we never ever thought of the other result. They are a play-off rival and we wanted to put in a result against them. It was a good game and we’ll learn a lot from it.”
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