MICKEY Demetriou has told his Newport County AFC teammates to make sure they have no regrets after this Saturday’s showdown with Tranmere Rovers at Wembley.

The Exiles defender is determined to seal promotion in the League Two play-off final and he doesn’t want to be looking back in anger after their big day at the home of English football.

Tranmere are the favourites to secure the final place in League One and Demetriou believes Rovers are under the most pressure, but he says County will give it everything they have to triumph this weekend.

“The pressure is all on Tranmere because they are the bigger club with a bigger budget and they will be expecting to go up,” said the 29-year-old centre-back.

“But we will fight for everything, as we always do.

“We owe it to the fans who are making the journey to Wembley to give it all we have, and we will do.

“The big thing for us is to make sure that we don’t have any regrets at the final whistle.”

County played at Wembley last season when they took on Tottenham Hotspur in an FA Cup fourth-round replay and Demetriou believes that experience will help the squad on Saturday.

“We’ve all played there before,” he said. “I think it’s only Regan [Poole] who hasn’t and he’s played at Old Trafford, so none of us will be intimidated.

“Having that experience last year will hopefully mean it won’t affect us.

“We’ve played in lots of big games over the past few years and we’ve always managed to play the game and not the occasion and that’s what we’ll be trying to do again.”

South Wales Argus:

Demetriou is one of nine players who are out of contract this summer and the outcome of the final could go a long way to deciding if he and many of his teammates remain at Rodney Parade nest season.

“It could be the last time we play together as a group and it would be easy to get sentimental about that because we are all very close,” he admitted.

“But we can’t think about that. We’re focused on the game and we’ll leave any decisions on our future until after Saturday.”

Demetriou will be up against some familiar faces on Saturday and he’s looking forward to going up against Rovers’ 32-goal striker James Norwood and former County centre-back Sid Nelson.

“I’ve known James for years,” he said. “We played together as youngsters for the Sussex County squad.

“He’s obviously a great player and you always know you’ve got your work cut out when you’re up against him.

“The challenge we always set ourselves is to keep players like him quiet and we enjoy that.

“He hasn’t scored against us this season and hopefully we can keep it that way.

“But they have plenty of goal threat. We saw what Ollie Banks is capable of in the semi-final against Forest Green.

“They’re certainly not a one-man team.

South Wales Argus:

“Sid was part of the squad that kept the club alive two years ago,” added Demetriou.

“It’ll be friendly between us before the game but we obviously want to do a job for the team.

“Once the game starts it will be down to business and hopefully we’ll get the better of his side.”