WORCESTERSHIRE captain Joe Leach lifts the lid on his thoughts going into the new Specsavers County Championship season.

WE are really excited to be heading into the new season. It is a step up in standard in Division One but one we look forward to making.

We want to finish as high up in the table as we possibly can and establish ourselves as a top-flight side.

This group is more established in first-class cricket. There is more experience and I think we can take real confidence from the fact we won Division Two last year.

The club have won promotion as the second-placed team in the past but winning the title was a confidence boost for everyone involved and I feel we can take that forward into this year.

We feel like we belong now. Before, we might have gone into it with a bit of a survival attitude but this time we want to give it a really good crack and see where it takes us.

There is more strength in depth in Division One. At the lower end of Division Two, there are more beatable teams but anyone can beat anyone at this level.

It is a scrap for the whole season, a very competitive standard with a quarter of the teams getting relegated at the end.

There is something on every game all the way through and that’s not always the case in the second tier.

We want to be challenging and looking to win one of the white-ball competitions.

The way we played our 50-over cricket last year, dominating the north group, suggests we have a chance of doing that.

In the four-day cricket, we will simply look to finish as high as we can. I don’t want to say avoid relegation because I think that would be a negative mindset.

I also don’t want to say we’re looking to win it because it is all about taking one game at a time, winning as many as we can and seeing where that takes us.

If we can build some momentum in the early part of the season in the same way we did last year then it will stand us in really good stead.

The way the season is mapped out, there is a five-week block where we could put ourselves in a really good position.

The young side you saw two or three years ago still has that youthful energy but with the clout to match it now.

I think exciting times lie ahead.