A taste of the Premier League has given Dominic Samuel the hunger to succeed.

The striker made his competitive debut for Reading at Sunderland as a 17-year-old in the top flight of the English game.

Now 21, the striker still has a burning ambition to reach the top of the game but knows only hard work will get him there.

A productive end to the season at Gillingham might just help his cause.

Samuel, on loan from Reading, said: “I am not going to think that because I have played in the Prem when I was young that I have done everything I can, because I haven’t.

“Sometimes players can go wrong when they have had it too young, they can just relax, because they have made their debut when they were young.

“It makes me even hungrier to be more successful.”

Samuel does admit that he almost fell into the trap of thinking he had cracked it already, after his Premier League appearance.

He said: “I was over the moon at that age. Don’t get me wrong, I did think that I had done everything in football but I have got a strong family beside me.

“It got to a point where I was getting a bit too happy and thinking I had made it but my family kept me on my toes and made sure I kept doing what I was doing and working hard.

“If you work hard and do all the right things, then you can be wherever you want to be.”

Read the full interview in Friday's Medway Messenger