ROVERS midfielder Ben Gladwin is hoping some encouraging cameos off the bench can see him rewarded with his first league start of the season at Bradford City tomorrow.

Gladwin missed the opening day defeat at Southend United with a calf injury, but was involved in the Carabao Cup win at Coventry City, and Saturday’s defeat to Doncaster Rovers.

He was however, a regular in the team during pre-season, before picking up the injury ahead of the final friendly at Carlisle United.

The summer signing from Queens Park Rangers added a goal threat to the side against Doncaster, going close with two efforts shortly after coming on.

And Gladwin said: “I feel like I’ve shown a little bit of what I can do.

“I try and drive the team forward a little bit and get crosses in and get shots off.

“I obviously played quite a lot of minutes through pre-season and I got the calf strain at the wrong time, but I’m back fit now and just trying to get myself in the team and get results, because that’s obviously the most important thing.”

Rovers, promotion favourites coming in to the season, have lost their opening two league games ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Bradford City.

The Bantams have a strong record in front of their own fans and have taken maximum points from their two league games so far.

But Gladwin is confident that Rovers can bounce back from the poor result, and performance, against Doncaster.

He added: “It was a disappointing result. We have talked about the things that we need to improve on, looked back at videos and try to move on to.

“Obviously no-one is happy at all, but we’re not going to lose our heads.

“We’ve got some experienced players in there that have seen a lot, but it’s not going to help anybody if we all start going nuts, so we will try to remain calm and work on things throughout the week that we need to.”

Boss Tony Mowbray has maintained a confidence that his players can overcome their slow start, a feeling shared by Gladwin.

And he says the focus is on getting their first points on the board against Bradford.

He added: “We all know that (is important).

“The boys know that. It’s massively important and we’ve all been working really hard throughout the week to prepare ourselves.”