Championship: Swansea 3 Nottingham Forest 1

Swansea City have booked their place in the Championship play-off final with a 3-1 win over Nottingham Forest.

The Welsh outfit held Forest to a 0-0 draw in their semi-final first leg at The City Ground, but Swansea took the upper hand in the space of five first-half minutes on Monday at Liberty Stadium, when Leon Britton and Stephen Dobbie both scored.

Robert Earnshaw hit back for the visitors with 10 minutes remaining, but after Forest shot-stopper Lee Camp came up for a late corner, Swansea sealed the win through Darren Pratley’s effort into an empty net from the halfway line.

After Swansea monopolised possession in the opening exchanges, it was the visitors who almost went ahead after five minutes courtesy of a brilliant counter attack.

Attacker Nathan Tyson was freed down the right hand side and his cut-back pass found a surging David McGoldrick, but his left-footed shot skimmed the crossbar with City goalkeeper Dorus de Vries beaten.

The home side responded with their own chance, going within inches of an 18th-minute lead when attacker Fabio Borini also struck the crossbar.

The Italian attacker produced a fine turn before his right-foot shot was deflected onto the bar after a desperate block from Forest defender Wes Morgan.

But Swansea did open the scoring 10 minutes later thanks to a fine individual effort from Britton.

The midfielder received a short corner before being given too much space by the Forest defence, curling a left-footed strike into the top corner from the edge of the area with Camp unmoved.

The tie was all but over when they got a second through Dobbie five minutes later.

He played a one-two with Nathan Dyer before beating two markers and placing across Camp and into the bottom corner.

Nottingham should have been back in the game early in the second half when Tyson again carved out an opportunity, cutting back for Marcus Tudgay, who inexplicably fired over the bar from close range.

Forest did pull a goal back when Earnshaw got in behind the Welsh club’s defence to fire home a right-footed shot in the 80th minute, making for a tense finale.

Earnshaw almost single-handedly forced extra time when he hit the woodwork in injury time, making it the third time Forest found a goal post in the match.

But with Camp desperately trying to help his side score an injury-time equaliser from a corner, Pratley took full advantage on the rebound by striking a swinging ball straight into the heart of an empty net, moving Swansea one step closer to the Premier League.