BRENTFORD boss Andy Scott said he hated watching Hereford celebrate promotion at Griffin Park last season - and used it as an inspiration to make sure it will be his side partying this season.

The Bees didn’t quite do it on Saturday against the Reds but are closing in on being a League One team next season.

They have all the attributes - a bumper crowd, clinical finishing, creative players and a solid defence which are all the things which have steered them towards title hopefuls.

And it may make Reds boss John Coleman use Brentford as his yardstick for next season as the Bees did Hereford.

The Stanley boss will feel he has two out of the four qualities to aim for a top half of the table finish in 2009/10 - but how he would love to have all four and make the Reds a real force to be reckoned with.

The defence has certainly been bolstered this season, conceding 47 goals as opposed to the 83 they let in last season. If they could eliminate a few mistakes, it would certainly boost their league spot.

They have creative players with Jimmy Ryan being a strong contender for Player of the Year and young winger Chris Turner probably being the find of the campaign - thrust into a Rochdale match due to injuries and quickly adapting to League life.

John Miles can make things happen when he is in top form and there are hopes that, after an injury-hampered season, Bobby Grant can turn on the style in the new campaign.

But clinical finishing has been missing from the Reds this season despite the number of strikers who have tried - and been unable to hit the goalscoring heights.

Fola Onibuje, Kallum Higginbotham, Gregg Blundell, Craig Lindfield and Michael Symes have been unable to hit the net with regularity.

Blackburn three month loanee Jamie Clarke scored five goals - but three of these were in one match - while Terry Gornell was just finding his scoring boots before he was recalled to main club Tranmere Rovers.

And Stanley’s main man for the last eight seasons Paul Mullin has been unable to settle with a regular strike partner and usually gets into double figures for the season but had to settle for eight before he moved to Bradford in March.

But, while Coleman can work on resolving his strike issues during the summer, the big stumbling block remains - the crowds.

More than 7,000 packed into Griffin Park to see if the Bees could seal their return to League One after two seasons in the bottom tier.

And even Grimsby managed to get 6,500 on Easter Saturday as they battle against the drop.

Stanley’s average, though, is 1397 this season - and, despite selling 600 season tickets for the new campaign, the revenue is not pouring into the club via the gates.

"It is difficult to come to London and win at the best of times but when there are big crowds, things do not tend to go your way anyway," said Coleman after Saturday’s clash.

"But you are battling a club who has got resources. If you are just looking at the harsh facts, they have 7000 fans to our 1000, that’s 7-1 and it shows the revenue they have compared to us.

"The plus is we did keep battling away and gave them a good game in the second half.

"But we do feel like we can compete with teams like this and we are disappointed that our performance in the first half lost us the game."

The Reds were 2-0 down by the half-time whistle as a party atmosphere at Griffin Park spread to the pitch and the home players seized on it.

Kayleigh Osborne played in a deep cross which the influential Sam Williams, on loan from Aston Villa and wearing some debatable green boots, leapt higher than Phil Edwards to and he put the Bees in front on eight minutes - although his header did seem to take an age to hang in the air before squeezing between Kenny Arthur and the far post.

Then, four minutes before the break, a Reds attack broke down, and they failed to clear their lines with tricky Ryan Dickson leaving captain Peter Cavanagh grounded and firing low into the net, again beyond the diving Arthur.

2-0 down at half-time and the Reds had created little up front and the Stanley fans who just got to the ground in time for kick off after a delay on the M6, might have pondered if the journey was worth it.

However it did get better after the break although by this stage the Reds had gone a further goal behind.

Charnock, who had needed lengthy treatment to stop the flow of blood from his nose after a blow to the face, did push dangerman Williams in the area and up stepped Ipswich loanee Billy Clarke to slot home the penalty - his fourth in four games.

It was the ninth penalty given against the Reds this season and they have been awarded just four much to Coleman’s frustration.

"The penalty was debatable but you tend to get them given in front of 6,000 fans at home and do not get them in front of 900 at Accrington," he said.

"I think we must have the least penalties given for us and the most given against us so what does that tell you? We can’t keep being unlucky."

The Reds chief had to try and liven up his side and made a triple subsitutions with Adam Kay, on loan from Burnley, making his Stanley debut and John Mullin and Grant coming on.

They did add some more urgency with Grant failing to take a chance at the far post, Ryan firing narrowly over, Symes having a shot well-saved and Miles blasting off-target.

But, in reality, the Bees already had the three points sewn up.

"We beat ourselves in the first half," said Coleman. "They were two stupid goals to concede and the lads know they were stupid goals and could easily have been dealt with. The build up to both was disgraceful.

"But in the second half, we had more shots than in the previous one-and-a-half games and so it is not all doom and gloom. We competed to the end but the damage was done early on.

"We did travel down on the day but I cannot label that as an excuse. It is not so much the travelling down it is the getting up early and, I know it sounds corny, but when you get up early you tend to be scared of sleeping in and so you sleep is broken but that’s possibly the only problem.

"And it is not an excuse as we pinned them back in the last half hour and showed we weren’t tired."

It has though seemed a tiring season for the Reds - with 21 league defeats in their 44 games so far.

Brentford have just six losses which explains why they are at the top.

There is a long way to go for the Reds to get there but as Coleman says: "We will roll our sleeves up and keep trying."