By Paul Jones
Bolton’s Welsh striker Aaron Collins is 90 minutes away from playing in the Championship next season after his wonderful goal sent his club on their way to a Wembley play-off final.
Collins – a former Wales U19 cap- secured his place in the League One play-off final despite Bolton being beaten by Barnsley at the Toughsheet Community Stadium as Ian Evatt’s side edged the visitors 5-4 on aggregate.
Holding the upper hand after last Friday’s 3-1 semi-final first-leg win at Oakwell, Bolton had their lead cut in the 36th minute by Sam Cosgrove before hitting back with a fine Collins strike and an Eoin Toal header in quick succession just prior to the break.
Barnsley scored again through Adam Phillips in the 64th minute and Cosgrove made it 3-2 on the night 12 minutes later to set up a tense finale.
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However Bolton held out as they gained revenge over the side that beat them in last season’s play-off semi-final.
They will head to Wembley a week on Saturday to vie with either Oxford or Peterborough for a place in the Championship – the former are 1-0 up in the tie ahead of Wednesday’s second leg at the Weston Homes Stadium.
Collins has been one of Bolton’s most influential players this season and has scored nine goals in his last 14 matches.
Bolton manager Evatt said of the finish, “It was one of the most unenjoyable 15 minutes of my life, it was crazy.
“But over the two legs, we deserve it. For large parts of today, we had complete control. We played really well in the first half, got ourselves in front and deservedly so.
“The second half was just meandering into nothing, we dealt with the first 15 minutes.
“Just a little bit of game management, just being more focused and more professional, and [having] almost over-confidence because we felt like we had the job done – it gifted them some momentum with the equaliser and then we’ve had to hang on for dear life. Credit to them, they were excellent.
“We’re not going to over-celebrate, we’ve got one more game to go and a big job to do before we can start to even think about celebration.”
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Bolton are seeking a return to the second tier having last been in the division in 2018-2019, and a second promotion under Evatt, who guided them out of League Two in 2021.
For Barnsley, missing out on the final completes a disappointing end to 2023-24 in which they failed to win any of their final six games of the regular season and sacked manager Neill Collins with one match remaining, placing Martin Devaney in interim charge.
Collins was to the fore in the opening stages, seeing a low strike pushed away by Liam Roberts and then dispossessing Maël de Gevigney and slotting home in the ninth minute, only for the referee, Oliver Langford, to disallow the effort, judging it had been a foul.
Barnsley had penalty appeals waved away when Cosgrove went down under a challenge from the Bolton goalkeeper Nathan Baxter, before Roberts made a good diving save to turn behind another shot from Collins, who subsequently fired wide on the follow-up after Dion Charles’s strike was blocked.
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The visitors, having shown little threat up to that point, registered an attempt with Josh Earl nodding wide from a corner – and then a goal as Cosgrove battled to meet John McAtee’s delivery and headed in from close range.
Their joy was short lived, though, as Bolton responded with Collins sending a delightful strike from 25 yards into the net in the 43rd minute, and Toal then heading home three minutes later from Gethin Jones’s tee-up to give Evatt’s side a three-goal advantage on aggregate.
After Luca Connell curled off target for Barnsley early in the second half and Charles struck wide at the other end, the visitors pulled another goal back when the Bolton captain, Ricardo Santos, gave the ball away and it was worked from Cosgrove to Phillips, whose shot was deflected past Baxter.
And nerves among the Bolton fans tincreased when Conor Grant lofted the ball into the box and Cosgrove headed in his second.
De Gevigney subsequently put a shot wide and a late header on to the roof of the net as continued Barnsley pressure failed to yield another goal, before the final whistle prompted a pitch invasion from delirious Bolton supporters.
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