SIMON Raiwalui (pictured) is Newport's captain for the second successive season, with his big aim to take them into the Heineken Cup quarter-finals for the first time.

The Fiji skipper and second row agreed to continue the role he successfully carried out last season after a chat with new head coach Leigh Jones.

"He is an impressive individual. He is an articulate and intelligent guy who has huge respect among the rest of the squad," said Jones.

"I firmly believe the game is going away from one individual who makes all the decisions on the field towards unit leaders.

"We've got huge experience within the squad, people like Ofisah Tonu'u, Shane Howarth, Matt Pini, Andy Marinos, Rod Snow, Ian Garvey, and so it's a case of Simon overseeing the whole ship as it were.

"Simon's impressed me with his rugby prowess, but he has also impressed me as an individual."

Raiwalui commented: "It was a learning experience last season, but I really enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to doing it again.

"I don't find it difficult. It's a bit of extra responsibility but Newport are a team of leaders and it's not a hard job when you have good experience throughout the team.

"I think everybody realises I'm not a guy like Gary (Teichmann, the previous skipper). I'm myself. I play it the way I play it and try to captain the best I can."

Asked about his hopes for the new campaign, Raiwalui added: "We want to start off well in the Celtic League and then we're on to Europe.

"Europe is massive for us, both in terms of the players and financially as well.

"It will be our third year in Europe and we obviously want to take the step up from the group stages into the quarter-finals.

"But we have another tough group and we'll have to concentrate hard on every game.

"London Irish won the (Powergen) Cup and are one of the best teams in England, Edinburgh played really well towards the end of last season and won something like ten games in a row, and then there's Toulouse!

"We know them from last season and we know how tough they are. They'll be smarting from last season and not making the final stages. So it's going to be another big campaign."