Conor Hourihane: Swansea City's on-loan Aston Villa player eyeing another Wembley triumph

Conor Hourihane knows the euphoria prompted by play-off victory and the numbness of defeat.

The key to play-off success?

"You need a bit of everything," Hourihane says.

"You need things to go for you. You need to perform. You need everyone to play their part - the keeper has to make a few good saves, the defence has to be solid and your strikers need to hit form.

"You need calm heads as well. And you need a bit of luck, that's for sure."

Hourihane, who is on loan at Swansea from Aston Villa, speaks from experience.

The midfielder's first taste of the play-offs was in League One in 2015-16 with Barnsley, who eased past Walsall in the semi-finals before beating Millwall 3-1 at Wembley.

In 2017-18 Hourihane was part of the Villa side who, having overcome Middlesbrough in the semi-finals, lost the Championship play-off final to Fulham at Wembley.

Twelve months later they were back.

In the season when a cabbage was thrown at Steve Bruce - he was sacked the following day - Dean Smith led his rejuvenated Villa team to semi-final victory over West Bromwich Albion, when Hourihane scored a brilliant first-leg goal and then netted again in the penalty shootout which settled the tie.

At Wembley, Anwar El Ghazi and John McGinn goals saw Villa beat Frank Lampard's Derby County 2-1.

"Play-off games are tense affairs, fantastic occasions when they go for you but hugely, hugely disappointing when they don't go for you," Hourihane tells BBC Sport Wales.

"They are amazing games to play in. When they go for you, there's no feeling like it."

Barnsley's 2016 success came at the end of a spectacular run, which saw them climb from the foot of the table in December to win promotion as well as the Johnstone's Paint Trophy.

In 2018 Fulham's form had been most impressive heading into the play-offs and Slavisa Jokanovic's team duly reached the Premier League.

Villa's triumph over Derby came after their own sparkling run, with 10 straight wins in March and April sending their season into overtime.

"In the campaigns I have been involved in, I do feel like the team going in with momentum go in with confidence," Hourihane says.

"Our form has definitely picked up - we feel like we are in decent shape. We got it done [secured a play-off place] at Reading, the lads did well against Derby and if we can get another result at Watford we'd feel like we are in a good way heading into it."

Villa are now flourishing in the Premier League having recovered from the pain of play-off failure to deliver promotion the following season.

After last season's play-off semi-final defeat by Brentford, Swansea's challenge is to emulate Hourihane's parent club.

Barring a remarkable set of results on Saturday, the final day of the regular season, Swansea know they will not face the Bees at the semi-final stage this year.

Instead it will be Barnsley, where Hourihane played more than 130 games before moving to Villa in 2017, or Bournemouth, the club he could have joined in January but instead opted for Swansea.

Bookmakers make Brentford favourites to be celebrating at Wembley come 31 May, with Bournemouth next in the betting ahead of Barnsley, with Swansea the outsiders courtesy of their inconsistent late-season form.

Hourihane, who has been round this block a few times, is shying away from play-off predictions.

"Bournemouth have been on a fantastic run, although they have dipped a little bit with a couple of defeats I suppose," he says.

"I think Brentford are hitting a bit of form again and Barnsley can nick a result at any time. I feel like there's no one side who are going into it as red-hot favourites."

Republic of Ireland international Hourihane describes himself as "quietly pleased" with his form at Swansea, where he has scored five times in 20 appearances having struggled for Premier League game-time at Villa in the first half of the season.

He has featured 31 times for Villa in the top flight across the last two seasons and the aim for a player who climbed through the divisions after joining Plymouth Argyle a decade ago, is to return to the highest level.

As it stands, he will head back to Villa Park, where he has one year remaining on his contract, whenever Swansea's season ends.

"That's one goal I'd like to hit before retiring, playing back in the Premier League," he says.

"I probably won't have too many chances to try to achieve that. Hopefully that can be with Swansea, if we're successful in the play-off campaign."