FOR weeks it’s been considered an advantage in this most hectic, dramatic and pulsating of promotion races to be playing first over the Championship weekend.

Burnley had to watch before they took on Birmingham as Middlesbrough and Brighton secured midweek wins and then victories on the Friday night and Saturday lunchtime dislodged the Clarets from the top two for the first time in two months.

They responded at St Andrew’s and a week later got the chance to go first, piling the pressure on their rivals with a win at Preston and then watching with their feet up as Boro dropped points at home to Ipswich.

But with two games to go, has the advantage switched? It was suggested to Sean Dyche on Thursday that playing last of the three, at 4.45pm today, would give the Clarets the benefit of knowing exactly what was required.

After Boro dropped two more points at Birmingham on Friday, Dyche’s side could be presented with the opportunity to secure promotion with a game to spare if Brighton fail to beat Derby at the Amex. So is it now an advantage to be playing last on the penultimate weekend?

“The yin and yang of it is quite obvious. Everybody debates it. Really it’s the outcome,” said the Burnley boss.

“After that you can look back and say ‘oh yeah that was good, it was better to play then’.

“Before the outcome you can debate it all.

“Whatever happens to us, we’ll get ready, the whistle blows and we’re looking to play.”

Burnley, Boro and Brighton have moved clear at the top of the Championship, but one of the division’s three runaway sides will be forced to regroup come 3pm on Saturday as they try to secure promotion through the play-offs.

It’s now a test of nerve and temperament for the teams of Dyche, Aitor Karanka and Chris Hughton.

The Clarets have shown their ability to hold their nerve with late equalisers against their two rivals during April and that win under pressure at Birmingham, and will back themselves to do so again over what they hope will be their final 180 minutes of the season.

“Every game is a test of nerve,” said Dyche. “You can look at the games recently where the Sky programme shifts the games.

“All players sit on that knife edge before a performance, as an individual you think ‘am I going to play well? What can I do to make sure I play well?’ so it’s part of what you do as a professional.

“The more experience you have of that obviously the more you become self-aware if the strengths you have as a player and an enhanced chance of delivering at a higher level and more consistently.

Two wins will not only secure Burnley’s promotion and a Premier League return but see them match their total of 93 points from 2013/14.

That was a record tally for a team finishing runners-up in the Championship, and despite Boro dropping points on Friday it remains a possibility that for the only the third time since the Premier League breakaway in 1992 a team could collect over 90 points and not go up automatically.

Of matching their total of two years ago, Dyche said: “It’d be very good. I think that’s the highest runner-up total.

“We might need that to get the job done – that’s the way it’s looking at the moment. We’re well aware that we might have to do whatever we have to do.

“That’s the key to it. I’ve never set a target total. We’ll do what we do when the chance comes.”