MARK Cooper strives to give the time of day to every suitable trialist possible in order to ensure that Swindon Town don’t miss out on the next Ben Gladwin.

Cooper name-checked the former Southern League midfielder, who was part of a multi-million pound move taking him and Massimo Luongo to QPR earlier this summer, when reflecting on the efforts of the host of Town hopefuls involved in Tuesday’s 3-1 friendly defeat at non-league Solihull Moors.

More trialists will be handed the chance to impress when Cooper’s men head to Sydenhams League minnows Petersfield Town next weekend, but, as the Town boss admits, going on trial is a ruthless experience for any player.

“It’s brutal out there. There’s hundreds of players out of work and if they get an opportunity, they’ve got to take that opportunity and try and impress us with whatever game-time they get,” said Cooper.

“I think it’s important that we’ve given the trialists more game-time so we can start to make decisions on them.

“It’s not easy but we know that we have to look at trialists because we always go back to Ben Gladwin.

“Ben Gladwin was a trialist and look what happened to him, so we don’t dismiss anyone that says to us that they know a good player and we always have a look at them.

“We’ve got another game on Saturday, in which we’ll have a look at a few and then we’ll start to thin (the squad) out from there.”

A bevy of trialists were in action in the Midlands on Tuesday, including an unnamed Croatian midfielder, but there was no Jamie Sendles-White, who is set to sign elsewhere, whilst first-teamers Yaser Kasim and Jermaine Hylton missed out through an ankle knock and illness respectively.

Anton Rodgers was caught in possession with 17 minutes on the clock and Darryl Knights slotted past Tyrell Belford, but Town restored parity on the half-hour mark when patient passing ended with Fabien Robert getting on the end of Jake Nicholson’s pass and rounding keeper Danny Lewis.

But a mistimed tackle allowed Akwasi Asante to slide in Solihull’s second of the game and they completed the scoring on the stroke of half-time when Gareth Dean chested down a corner kick before his volley deflected devilishly into the net.