BEN Gladwin gave Swindon Town fans a glimpse of what they could have had in the first leg of his five date comeback tour.

Having found himself out of the first team picture at Queens Park Rangers, Gladwin rejoined Town on loan in a move confirmed on Friday. Although he appeared to have left his shooting boots in Harlington, Gladwin looked very much the Championship player dropping down a level against Peterborough.

It is strange to think that a year ago the idea of 23-year-old’s place in the Town side was far from guaranteed. Now his appearance in a Swindon shirt was akin to a long lost prodigy stumbling in through the door.

In the first and the better bits of the second half all that was good about Swindon’s performance went through Gladwin. Suddenly there was a bit of drive and invention to their play. It was direct, but not in a Tony Pulis way.

The progress Gladwin has made in little over two full seasons a professional footballer is phenomenal. Perhaps his strides forward have come from a summer training with a group of players who had just come out of the top division, or maybe it is natural progression.

The next four games will show if he has added consistency. If he has you might suggest a team built around Gladwin would be a real force in this division.

After picking up what must have been a unanimously awarded man of the match award he came and spoke to the press.

Gladwin’s self-assurance was a marked change from the hunched shoulders of the players put up by the club in recent weeks.

“For me on a personal note it was just good to get on the pitch and play some football,” Gladwin told the local media.

“I think we were a little bit unfortunate, maybe the first half wasn’t our best performance but in the second half we gave it a real good go."

Even his failures in front of goal did not seem to bother him.

“I don’t know the stats but I had plenty of shots today, it was one of those day where one wasn’t going to go in,” he added. 

“I’m full confidence at the moment having come back here so when I see the goal I’m going to have a pop. Maybe sometimes it wasn’t the right decision, but we were desperate for that second goal.”

Before moving on to assessing the team’s failing as a whole.

“When the first goal went in we were feeling a bit sorry for ourselves. That’s something we need to get straight out of," he said

“We have players that are capable of winning matches by themselves. We’re a fantastic team, I think it’s just a little bit of confidence from the start of the match to be a little bit more aggressive and go after the other team.

“But there’s enough positives to take out of the game and we move on to the next one.”