Forget the tired stereotypes about Yorkshiremen – Richard Dawson is not a man to lose sleep over money.
Appointed head coach of Gloucestershire yesterday, the former England spinner knows he is not walking into a county awash with cash or global superstars.
No team amounted to more than the sum of its parts than Gloucestershire's one-day kings at the turn of this century, and Dawson is a believer in nurturing rather than purchasing talent.
He said: "When I was here before I was looking at ways to close the gap between the best teams and what we had.
"I prefer to focus on what people can do than what they can't, and I would rather make someone's strengths very strong than try to hide their weaknesses.
"We've got attacking players and I like to play attacking cricket – that's what I was brought up on as a young lad at Yorkshire.
"My job is to get the best out of the group of players we've got and I want us to have a positive mindset, not worry about other teams with bigger budgets.
"Three years ago I remember us going down to Taunton in the T20 and beating Somerset by nine wickets, and it's days like that make you think what can be achieved if you add a bit of consistency."
The departures of Alex and Will Gidman to Worcestershire and Nottinghamshire respectively this winter maintained a horribly familiar trend of key personnel upping sticks to wealthier rivals.
Gloucestershire hope to eventually reverse that by hosting regular international cricket at the revamped County Ground, but Dawson feels there is enough talent and mental resolve in his current squad to deliver results – including promotion to Division One of the Championship.
"Of course the Gidman brothers are going to be massive losses and there are big holes to fill, but people have got to take responsibility and a bit of ownership for their own games now," he said.
"I'm not here to jump on their backs. I'm here to guide them and hopefully support them.
"I don't see why promotion in the Championship shouldn't be on the radar, although the thing with four-day cricket is you have to nail every session of every day.
"Yes there is a lot of talent here, but consistency is vital and with a young group of lads you are not going to get that straight away.
"That's something they should be bringing to the table now. They might be young in age but they have played quite a lot of cricket.
"The 50-over competition should be a realistic goal – they lost a close quarter-final last year – and the T20 is one where you can get on a run and build up some momentum.
"We won't be targeting one competition. Every day we come in we'll try to nail it."
At 34 the County have youngest head coach on the first-class circuit, and he is a replacing a giant of the global game in departing director of cricket John Bracewell.
Though an unashamed admirer of the New Zealander's methods, Dawson feels he can bring a new vigour to the Nevil Road dressing room.
He said: "I've only been out of the game playing-wise for three years so that's the biggest difference between myself and Braces (Bracewell), who obviously has a vast amount of experience dealing with first-team stuff.
"I don't know what that difference will mean but I'm enthusiastic and I love the hands-on part of coaching.
"I'm similar to Braces in that I'm a big ideas man and every day has got a purpose, and I would hope there aren't many wasted hours when it comes to my coaching.
"When I initially retired from playing and started doing a bit of coaching I found it difficult to break away from being a friend and a team-mate.
"But it's a fresh start now and there are quite a few lads here who I've never worked with before."
One of those is Geraint Jones, who will skipper the County in Championship cricket this summer before Michael Klinger returns to take the one-day reins in the second half of the season.
Dawson added: "Obviously our paths have crossed in county cricket but I'm looking forward to getting to know Geraint.
"Michael Klinger is probably still celebrating his Big Bash win with Perth so it will be good to chat to him too.
"It's going to be a finding-out period for all of us."
