PROMOTION-chasing Burnley have timed their sprint for the line to near perfection.

And midfield thoroughbred Paul Cook is hoping the Clarets' late run up the rails will get their noses past the finishing post first at Scunthorpe tomorrow.

Despite occupying a top-six spot all season, Burnley have only been in the automatic promotion places on three brief occasions.

But Cook believes that could work in their favour and critically the Clarets will be in the top two went it really matters tomorrow night if they win at Scunthorpe and Gillingham don't beat Wrexham at the Racecourse Ground.

"Everyone's just genuinely looking forward to the game. I think the good thing for us more than anything is that we've never been in a position where people have said 'Burnley will go up'," said Cook.

"We've always solidly been a play-off team all season. Obviously within the club we've always believed we can go up.

"There's never been a problem with that, but I think if you were in the Wigan camp or the Bristol Rovers camp now they will all feel genuinely disappointed.

"Our lads are bubbling. The atmosphere at the club has been brilliant all year and all we are going to do is approach Saturday's game like we did for Bournemouth and Cardiff away and the rest of the games lately, go there ad hopefully take the three points."

Relegated Scunthorpe have just one home win to their name this year, while Burnley have moved menacingly towards the top thanks to a run of just four defeats since Christmas and six wins in their last seven games.

However, continuing that run will only be enough to clinch promotion if Brian Flynn's Wrexham hold the in-form Gills.

"It's a tough game for them at Wrexham but we can't influence that. All we can influence is our game," Cook added.

"What we can't do is come off the pitch tomorrow not having won, thinking if we'd have won we might have gone up.

"All we can do is win our game and then come off the pitch and say 'what's happened ?'"

But whether Burnley do it tomorrow or have to tackle the play-offs in a bid to return to Division One for the first time in five years, Cook believes the Clarets can reflect on an impressive campaign.

"The only disaster will be if we don't win and Gillingham don't win. That would be disappointing.

"If we win and Gillingham win, so be it. You've got to have that attitude. "If we win there's only one team that can go up apart from us and to accumulate 88 points, I think people would say Burnley have had a good year.

"Then we'll address the next situation of the play-offs if we have to the week after that," said the play-maker who has been an integral part of Burnley's success having missed just two League games all season.

And Cook believes Burnley's consistency just a season after they nearly went into Division Three would make promotion one way or the other fully warranted.

He added: "We've had a couple of hiccups in certain games but we've never had a really bad spell. I think the worst spell we've had was the Preston and Luton results which were in the space of four days at home which were bitterly disappointing results for the club.

"But all through that we've bounced back right away. We had a terrible result against Gillingham at home. The lads were terribly disappointed after the Gillingham game but we've come right back by going win, win, win.

"As players I think we've got a really good, honest set of lads. If we do achieve what we've set out all season to achieve on Saturday, it will be thoroughly deserved.

"And if we don't, we'll go into the play-offs and say 'right, let's win this'."