Darren Oldaker insists he’s a different player now from the one who first burst onto the scene at Gillingham.

Oldaker made his second Football League start for the Gills last Saturday, starring in a 4-0 win over Bradford City, two years after former boss Justin Edinburgh first named him in the starting XI for a Football League fixture.

Now 19, Oldaker says he’s matured on and off the pitch.

He said: “I have changed a lot and the gaffer (Steve Lovell) has proper knuckled down on me.

“The main reason I got into the team was because of what I was doing off the ball.

“I have matured. I was a bit of a showboater before, I just did what I wanted to do. I did what I fancied and I didn’t do anything for the team. I never did anything off the ball.

“I was a bit lazy but I have matured and I now know what I have to do.”

The player admits that getting the chance to play in the first team at such a young age went to his head.

“I thought it was just going to come easy,” said Oldaker, who is nicknamed DJ by his team-mates. “It was my attitude; I thought I was better than what I was.”

Oldaker’s appearances began to dwindle and he was on the outside looking in at the start of this season.

Boss Steve Lovell wanted to see more than a player good on the ball – Oldaker needed to do the hard work off it, too.

The message has got through and now Oldaker has been given a chance, he doesn’t want to let it slip.

He said: “You have to have both sides of the game and I feel it is coming into my game a lot more and more naturally now. It has changed.

“I have probably been a bit of a bad egg in the past. I have definitely given him (Lovell) some grey hairs but he is one of my favourite managers, he tells you how it is.

“At the start of the season I wasn’t in his plans but I have worked hard now to get into the team and hopefully I can stay there.”

Oldaker has also had to grow up off the field, having moved out of the family home.

He said: “I don’t live with my parents now but I still call them every day. They have been massive for me.

“Moving out was another reason I have matured. I am cooking for myself now and I have to wash my own clothes.

“I have to do it all myself. I feel a lot more mature and I needed that. I wish I matured when I was 17.”

His ambitions are to now stay in the team in the hope of earning a new deal in the summer. More performances like last weekend will help, claiming two

assists .

He said: “It’s a big six months ahead. I need to earn myself something. I need to show what I am about and prove to people I am not the bad egg, I haven’t got a bad attitude and hopefully I can turn some heads.

“I have been given a chance and I can’t blow it.”