RICHARD Sneekes, a member the only Bolton squad to taste success in six traumatic play-off ventures, is determined to prevent his old club making it a magnificent seventh.

The Dutch midfielder - central to Gary Megson's game plan at The Hawthorns tomorrow - aims to make Wanderers pay for not securing automatic promotion.

"The fact that Bolton finished 13 points higher than ourselves means nothing now," he said with a painful reminder to Reebok fans of how close they came to taking the direct route to the Premiership. "We start tomorrow from scratch."

Sneekes, who joined Wanderers from Fortuna Sittard for £175,000 in August 1994, was a key member of the Bruce Rioch team that reached that season's Coca Cola Cup Final and clinched promotion to the Premiership. But, after playing at Wembley in the 2-1 defeat by Liverpool, he was injured and missed out on the dramatic Play-off Final triumph over Reading.

He reluctantly agreed to a £375,000 transfer to Albion in February 1996 after struggling to establish himself as a regular in the top flight. But he still holds the club in high regard for giving him his first break in English football and admits: "I'd rather be playing against Bolton than anybody else, although I'd have preferred meeting them in the final!"

Nevertheless, like his teammate Bob Taylor, he is relishing the duel against old friends.

"For me and Bob it's great to be playing against Bolton again.

"We both really enjoyed our time there. It's a big family club and I loved every minute.

"Players sometime need time to adjust to the English game but I got straight into it when I went there, as if I'd never played anywhere else.

"It was a tremendous season and to miss out at the end did hurt. But at least I had the Coca Cola Cup to look back on, when I thought the atmosphere at Wembley was better than at the Play-off Final."

But there is no room for sentiment in football and despite his affection for Wanderers and the strong possibility he could be heading back to Holland if there's no contract forthcoming from Gary Megson, Sneekes is hell bent on achieving some success with Albion, who have only been in the play-offs once before - the 1993 success when Taylor scored a club record 37 goals. And he sees no reason why, having finished sixth in the table, they should feel any sense of inferiority.

"Watford finished sixth two years ago and got up," he pointed out, poking at an old Wanderers' wound, "and that should be a massive incentive for us.

"Bolton beat us here (in August) when we were still playing 4-4-2 and things weren't going well but we went to their place (December) and did really well. But these are one-off games and anything is possible.

"Bolton know all about the pressures that come with the play-offs ... it's all new to us and it's nice for the supporters to feel this kind of pressure for once. They haven't felt it for a long time. And it's much better to feel this kind of pressure than the one we experienced last season when we were scraping around for points.

"Even if we don't make it, this has been a fantastic year for us. Nobody expected us to get this far but the manager has said he wouldn't bet a penny against us and I'd agree with him. We're hard to play against, tight at the back, work hard in midfield and have two players (Lee Hughes and Jason Roberts) up front who are quick and can score goals."