Jonny Hayes was the player who spoke to the media as part of the MD-1 press activities on Wednesday.

“The build-up has been looking towards the play-off for a long time. As soon as we knew we were guaranteed group stage football we knew we were going to have the play-off that was going to be massive for the group of players, the fans, everybody involved.

“It’s one to relish, one to enjoy and I’m definitely looking forward to it. You’re always confident going into every game and you respect the opposition regardless of who they are.

“We know we’re going to have a tough game and Hacken are a good side. Last game was probably really entertaining from a neutral point of view and we probably could have stole it in the end. They’re a tough side but it’s a big game in terms of consequences for both teams so it’s one we’re looking forward to.

“It’s got to be right up there, in terms of European games I have played in. The carrot of getting to the Europa League group stages is huge and we know we did a lot of hard work at the back end of last season to guarantee our place.

“But the Europa League is a slightly bigger competition and you want to aim for the best. We’d be saying the same if it was a play-off for the Champions League. It’s a big game and we want to go that extra step.

“If you look at the qualification process over the last seven or eight years it’s been tough. We’ve had some tough ties and it’s been a bridge too far a number of years. We’ve always talked about loving to have the chance to play at Real Sociedad or Groningen, wherever it may be, in a one-off game to make the task easier of getting into group stage football.

“We have that this year and also the parachute of the Conference League but we’re going out to try and win the game tomorrow night and we hope we can make it to the Europa League. We know it’ll be tough but that’s our aim.”