Ask Richard Dawson what his hopes are for the coming season and Gloucestershire’s head coach doesn’t hesitate.

“To improve on last year,” he said.

And while that may be obvious – Gloucestershire failed to qualify for the knockout stages of either white ball competition, and never really threatened to be promotion contenders in the county championship – it’s how you go about bringing about that improvement that is all important.

For Dawson, hard work and players consistently backing themselves in the heat of battle is key to Gloucestershire’s chances of enjoying a successful campaign.

Hard work is pretty much a given of course – the focus on 2018 began almost as soon as the last ball of last season was bowled – but Dawson wants more players to put their hands up more often in both the shorter and longer formats of the game.

“We didn’t have enough people contributing in games,” Dawson said. “We usually had two or three players contributing but you need seven or eight if you’re to be successful.

“When you get those numbers contributing we’ve got a very good team and we’ve beaten some very good sides.”

Dawson, 37, knows what he’s talking about of course. An off-spinner back in the day, he was part of Yorkshire’s county championship winning side in 2001 alongside the likes of Darren Lehmann, Michael Vaughan and Matthew Hoggard, and was good enough to play seven Tests for England in the early noughties.

As a coach he helped Gloucestershire to win the One-Day Trophy at Lord’s in 2015 – his first season in charge – and has worked with England Under-19s so he has a pretty impressive CV on and off the field.

And while last season was disappointing for Gloucestershire, Dawson has been encouraged by a couple of signings that the county have made in the closed season – Andrew Tye, Ryan Higgins and Dan Worrall – who could and should make a big difference.

Australian pace man Tye has signed for the T20 Blast, Higgins, a 23-year-old all-rounder signed from Middlesex, has joined with a view to playing in all formats of the game, and Worrall, a one-day Australian international pace bowler who is with the club until early July.

The 31-year-old Tye played T20 for Gloucestershire in 2016. He would have played again last year but for injury and Dawson is excited by the prospect of the Australian one-day international returning to this neck of the woods.

“He offers something completely different,” said Dawson. “He always wants to be involved in the game and is a real strong character.

“He’s a very, very good bowler and always backs himself to bowl at the death.”

He’s not the first Australian to play for the county that was an outstanding ‘death’ bowler of course and if Tye achieves half the success that his compratiot Ian Harvey managed in the late 90s and early noughties then he will have done very well indeed.

Tye, like Harvey, can bowl at the start, middle or end of an innings, but it is the end that the really good bowlers can stand out from the crowd.

That is one of Tye’s strengths, but while there are similarities with the way Harvey played, there are differences too.

“Tye doesn’t bowl the back of the hand slower ball that Harv used to,” said Dawson, “but he’s got the same skill level. He bowls the slower ball yorkers and really mixes it up, he’s a canny operator.”

Dawson is equally excited by the arrival of Higgins, a name that many Cheltenham Cricket Festival supporters from last year will remember after he smashed an unbeaten 68 from 28 balls to earn his then club the unlikeliest of T20 ties.

“He’s an up-and-coming player who did very well against us last season,” said Dawson. “He’s got some really good skills. He’s a confident lad and will bring a bit of fight to the changing room. He’s the type who is in your face.”

One of the reasons that Zimbabwe-born Higgins has moved to the West Country is that he wants to play in all formats of the game.

Thus far he has made his name mainly in the shorter versions of the game, but like Dawson he wants success in the four-day game as well.

The 26-year-old Worrall, meanwhile, has played three one-day internationals and Dawson said: “It’s great to have Dan joining us for the first part of the season. I’ve had some really positive feedback regarding his bowling, which should suit English conditions.

“He bowls a full length with decent pace and has good one day skills. He will add depth and experience to our bowling attack for the start of the season. We’re all looking forward to having him here.”

Dawson admits to being something of a traditionalist and said: “For me the county championship is the true test. It’s played over four or five months and you need everyone to perform at some stage. It’s our bread and butter.

“Division Two is going to be very tough this season. There are 10 teams and with Middlesex and Warwickshire coming down we’re going to be up against some clubs with big budgets.

“We played some good cricket at times last season but our problem was that if we had a bad session it tended to be pretty bad.”

And it was a similar story in white ball cricket.

“In the past few years we’ve shown we can get to quarter-finals or further,” said Dawson. “Last season we were in a good position in our T20 group with three games to go but then we just didn’t perform in those last three games.”

And while Gloucestershire’s performances tailed off in the T20 game, they never really got going at all in the 50-overs competition which was all the more disappointing after their thrilling win over Surrey at Lord’s two years previously.

“We mustn’t forget that we’ve lost three big players from that side – Geraint Jones, Hamish Marshall and James Fuller,” said Dawson.

“George Hankins has done very well but he’s only 20-21 and starting his career so expecting him to come in and do what Hamish Marshall did is a bit unrealistic.

“Our job is to fast-forward that improvement and get them up to speed as soon as possible.”

All things being equal, Hankins’ name is likely to be one of the first on the teamsheet for Gloucestershire’s four-day opener in Kent on Friday 13th April.

Benny Howells, who ended the season so well at the top of the batting order, is also likely to feature, but Dawson will have to wait until batsman James Bracey finishes his university studies before being able to call on the 20-year-old.

Judging by the way he ended 2017, the wait may well prove to be very worthwhile.