DAVID Lucas may be in new surroundings having joined Worcestershire this winter, but the left-arm seamer says some things never change.

The 33-year-old, who signed a three-year deal with the New Road outfit in the summer from Northamptonshire, has been reunited with his old fitness coach Ross Dewar.

Dewar, who is Worcestershire’s strength and conditioning coach, is charged with getting the County’s players in tip-top shape for the new season next spring.

With them beginning their third week of pre-season training tomorrow, Lucas has been made to feel welcome by his new team-mates.

“The first two weeks have been good,” he said. “Ross doesn’t change — he always works you hard, but it is good because it should mean you are strong for the start of a long season.

“It’s exciting being at a new club as well, maybe I was going a little bit stale at Northamptonshire, but I feel refreshed and am looking forward to the new season.”

Lucas is likely to help the evergreen Alan Richardson, who took an astonishing 73 wickets to keep the New Road outfit in LV= County Championship Division One last September, with the lion’s share of the seam bowling.

The pair are likely to be supported by last term’s player-of-the-year Gareth Andrew and seamer Richard Jones with the former Yorkshire bowler looking forward to working with the trio.

“Gaz had a fantastic season last year so I’m looking forward to really getting to know him and Richo. It will be great to hear his views for the season ahead,” Lucas said.

“Richard came back towards the end of last year, did really well and hopefully he will be able to do the same at the start of next season.”

Lucas added: “They invited me to the end-of-season awards evening in September and that was a really nice touch from the club.

“It was great to come down and meet everyone. Since we’ve been in training all the coaches have been really good.”