“IT’S like seeing your little brother punched in the stomach and you can’t do anything about it.”

David Lucas is the elder sibling in the Town changing room, and nine weeks out of the first-team frame has certainly worn him down.

The 33-year-old goalkeeper played his first match for the Robins since early December at Colchester United on Saturday, and he says the long stretch on the sidelines watching his teammates struggle has been almost unbearable.

But with a third of the League One season remaining Lucas is back, and he believes that the Swindon players have a personal as well as professional investment in keeping the club from slipping down a division.

“I’ve been a bit of a grouch for the last four or five weeks because it’s so frustrating not to be able to get out there and contribute,” he said.

“It’s like seeing your little brother punched in the stomach and you can’t do anything about it.

“It’s just nice to play a part and my natural personality is such that I want to go and help so I just can do.

“This is personal to us. It’s not a job that you come home from and forget about.

“Winning in football is your life. Whether you do well on the pitch is whether your kids get that extra toy or if your missus doesn’t get shouted at quite as much.

“It affects everyone. As much as people call footballers mercenaries, we definitely take it personally when things aren’t going quite as well.”

Lucas recognised the part he has to play in every aspect of the team dynamic around the County Ground.

As the resident veteran amongst Town’s youthful crop, the Preston-born stopper will have to call on his various experiences to help nurture the younger members of the Swindon squad through to the end of the season.

And the former Leeds man is ready and willing to take responsibility for exactly that.

“When you’ve got young kids in a team which we do have, it’s not in a young kid’s nature to be bossy and be the first one to shout up so it falls on my shoulders particularly to be the voice,” he said.

“There has to be someone to do the cheerleading role and I’m more than happy to do that.

“When I was a young kid and times were hard sometimes I didn’t have the experience to grasp hold of so you see the worst in every situation, but now I’m a bit older there is light at the end of the tunnel.

“It’s just a bad feeling at the minute but, believe me, these feelings come and go.”

Like the majority of those associated with the club, Lucas saw great strides made on the pitch despite the weekend loss.

But he was quick to point out Swindon must not trip up over the phrase ‘too good to go down.’ “There was a feeling of optimism with everyone thinking we played well,” he said.

“We played as a team and were a team who knew what they were doing. So I could see some green shoots of recovery and I thought we were certainly heading in the right direction.

“I won’t say that we’re almost there because we’re losing football matches, but it seems like we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet. We all have a common goal, we all know that this is our life.

“There’s no point in having blind optimism where we just think we’re going to get out of it and then May comes along and we’re relegated.

“We need to start turning this positive feeling into points, but you do that by having a decent gameplan, playing the percentages and going from a solid base.”