ONE home win under their belts and the atmosphere amongst the Swindon Town players is “jolly” again, according to Massimo Luongo.

Michael Smith’s penalty was enough to hand the Robins a 1-0 victory over Preston North End on Saturday, ending a run of eight matches and almost two months of home games without a home win.

The success appears to have bred confidence in the Town squad, with midfielder Luongo revealing that spirits are high in the County Ground camp ahead of tonight’s trip to Tranmere Rovers.

“Everyone is a bit more jolly and normal,” he said. “Confidence is probably building, although I wouldn’t say we’re at our peak. You can see that with the way the boys are playing individually.

“The weekend’s result was probably the base of that confidence-building because we hadn’t had a decent result in seven games or so. It’s just a start of a peak we’ve down the bottom of for a little bit.”

Luongo got a front-row seat as Ben Gladwin produced a stunning individual performance for Town at the weekend, and the Aussie thinks the ex-Marlow man is nowhere near the finished article.

“It’s his first proper season. In a way that’s like the rest of us but he hasn’t had the same upbringing that the rest of us have had and the development we’ve had,” he said.

“If that’s what you see from him in one game, imagine if he had three or four seasons under his belt. You can’t expect that to be his best performance by far. He’s probably got a lot to come.

“You can see in training that his quality on the ball is second to none, he’s class, and we’re half lucky if he gets a bit of it right in the game.”

Town visit a Tranmere team desperately battling to stay in League One this evening, and he wants to use Rovers’ crowd against them.

“It’s similar to Bristol. When we defended well we got their crowd a bit frustrated. Like any home game, when you’re chasing a win if you don’t create the chances the crowd can turn on you a little bit,” he said.

“We’ve had that in the past few games so if we defend well, if we’re solid and disciplined we’ll basically force them to start yelling.”