Thursday 7 April 2016 11:18, UK
Ed Joyce believes Sussex are capable of making an immediate return to County Championship Division One under the new regime at Hove.
Joyce stepped down as captain after Sussex were relegated from Division One last season with Luke Wright taking over the reins and there is also a new head coach in Mark Davis following Mark Robinson's appointment as England Women's head coach.
Irishman Joyce is now looking forward to the start of their Division Two campaign this weekend, although he acknowledges it will be a tough battle to win promotion with only one team going up this year due to the ECB's reorganisation of the County Championship.
"We just want to get into that first game against Northants on Sunday now," said the 37-year-old batsman. "There is a lot of excitement around - a new regime in place - [we] got rid of the old guys like myself last year and brought in Luke Wright, who has been a real breath of fresh air as captain.
"And Mark Davis has taken over as coach so there is a real feeling of optimism around the ground and hopefully we can get straight back up to Division One.
"[It's] two-down and one-up so it is going to be very, very difficult to go up. We were down in Division Two in 2010 and we won the competition that time so we are looking to repeat that, but it is going to be very difficult.
"[There are] lots of very good teams in Division Two and we haven't been here for a while so it could be a bit of a dogfight to go up.
"I think we have the tools in place. We just need to keep some bowlers on the park, unlike what we did last year, and if we do that I think we've got a good chance to be up there among the first two or three."
New captain Wright has also set his sights on promotion, but he wants to lay down some solid foundations for the future at the same time.
He said: "We are up against some good sides and we have got to play very well. But looking at the squad - at this time of the year you are always looking at your depth, etc, and we are looking pretty good.
"We learned a lot of lessons going down last year but we have got a young squad that have got to learn and build for the future really. And as a smaller county we need our young lads to come through and hopefully they can do that this year.
"If it means going up this year, then fantastic, but building for the future if it means another year or so, then we want to go up in that first division and actually compete rather than being a yo-yo club. So hopefully we can go up, but there are a lot of building blocks first."
Wright is delighted to have New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor on board this season and he is set to feature in the opening game against Northants.
"To get someone like him is huge for us all," said Wright.
"It's great for me as a new captain as well. He's been an international captain, he's a great guy and he was really keen to play county cricket.
"There's not too many of those around at the minute - they are normally all in the IPL -.so to get him for pretty much the whole season is great for us."
