Despite the stakes being so high, Simpson insists Saturday’s showdown is an occasion to savour with the atmosphere inside Dagenham’s tight Victoria Road ground sure to be red hot.
“It’s going to be a fantastic atmosphere and these are the type of games as a professional footballer you should want to be involved in,” he said.
“It’s about being brave and it’s also about being calm when you’re in both boxes, and hopefully our experience, our quality, will come through in these situations.
“I’m quite sure if we can start positively and somebody can get us a goal, that will help settle nerves. You have to channel nerves, tension, whatever it is, in the right way.
“We’ll learn a lot about the players this week, who can deal with this type of situation.
“But these are the games we want to be involved in. This is what the chairman’s built this stadium for so hopefully everybody will stand up to the challenge.”
Simpson, whose side have beaten Dagenham twice this season, including a 5-0 Johnstone’s Paint Trophy mauling in November, added: “We’ve had such a tricky run of late and not done ourselves any favours so to take it to the last day, we’re delighted.
“We know if we hadn’t won at Rotherham recently that we would have been out of it so we’re delighted to still be involved and this is what we set out for at the start of the season, to still be involved in a promotion push.”
Simpson added he was hopeful Turkish B international striker Omer Riza would recover from injury to be available.
Meanwhile striker James Constable, having spent the season on loan to Oxford United, completed a permanent switch to the Kassam Stadium club this week on a three-year deal.
Constable’s 23 goals for Oxford made him second top scorer in the Blue Square Premier this term but he was not in Simpson’s plans.
