Fergus O’Neill wants his influence on Trent Bridge to be felt long after he leaves as the squad gears up for an enticing trip to Utilita Bowl to face Hampshire.

The involvement of the Australian will be temporarily halted after the upcoming South Coast fixture as the Rothesay County Championship breaks for the Vitality Blast.

However, O’Neill is determined to make sure the squad feels his presence during the red-ball break and beyond, even if he will be elsewhere in the world.

“I’ve got three more games, even with the niggle I unfortunately picked up, but I want to leave a lasting impact,” he said. “I was lucky to do that last year, and I’ll try and do that again!

“It’s been very good to be back. It’s obviously been a bit of an interrupted start for me, but I’m still excited for what’s to come.

“We sit top of the ladder at the moment, so we want to add to that and finish this first block where we belong.”

The all-rounder has been named in a 14-strong squad to make the trip to Southampton as Nottinghamshire aim to hit the halfway stage of the Championship campaign on a high.

O’Neill’s positive influence off the pitch is often spoken of by the Green and Gold squad, but his performances on it have been just as decisive.

Despite a rib injury keeping him out of games against Warwickshire and Leicestershire, the 25-year-old has averaged 68 with the bat and a shade over 25 with the ball.

“It was good to bowl 20-odd overs against Surrey and know that I wasn’t going to break, and also good to get a few runs again,” he said.

“Obviously, though, when you go wicketless, you start chasing things a little bit, but I don’t think I disgraced myself!

“I’ll be looking to work on that for this next game, and I’ll try and contribute a few more wickets, as well as keeping going with the stick!”

Such a strong body of work has given O’Neill plenty of fire to take into the Green and Golds’ next assignment in Southampton, where he will come up against a familiar opponent.

“I know Hampshire have got my fellow countryman Jake Lehmann, who’s on a bit of a heater, so he might be tough work!” he laughed.

“He’s been a good player in Australia for a while, and I know he’s come over here in the past for some shorter stints, but now he’s here for the full season.

“With how he’s started, I’ll be asking the boys back home how to go about getting him out, and that will have to look a little bit different over here, I think!” he continued.

“We might have to fire up Tonguey [Josh Tongue] and see if we can get him done that way! But he’s a good player, along with a lot of other good players in their side.”

Given that assessment of Hampshire’s individual quality despite their lowly position of 10th, O’Neill believes the visitors are heading into an unknown.

“Obviously, with where they sit on the table, they’ll be wanting to win, so who knows what that pitch could do?” he mused.

“I think, though, we’ve shown that whether we’ve been provided with a challenging wicket either for the batters or for the bowlers, we find a way to come out with the points.”

With that record behind them, O’Neill is entirely confident in Nottinghamshire’s ability to obtain a positive result to round out the first block of red-ball action.

“The main thing I’ve noticed about this side since I’ve been here, including last year, is the way that you get contributors all down the order, with both bat and ball,” he explained.

“We’ll obviously be looking to do that again as we go in search of another nice win that will put ourselves a little way clearer at the top of the ladder.

“We’ll wait and see on how it goes, but we all believe that if we put our best foot forward, we’ll be too good.”