Ian Grieve named new Bristol captain

Grieve had offers from other clubs

Bristol have named back row forward Iain Grieve as their captain for next season's Championship campaign.

The 23-year-old replaces Jason Spice, who has yet to commit himself to the club for 2010-11.

The West country side have lost several leading players since their defeat by Exeter Chiefs in the play-off final.

"Despite the offers he has had from other clubs Iain, like many others, has decided that his future is here," said Bristol chairman Chris Booy.

"They want to be part of what we all want to build at Bristol."

Since Bristol's failure to regain a place in the Premiership, they have lost Luke Eves and Redford Pennycook to Newcastle and Luke Arscott and James Phillips to Exeter. Lee Robinson has also joined Leicester and Alex Crockett moved to Worcester.

Bristol have agreed terms with Roy Winters, Darren Crompton, Mark Irish, Wayne Thompson, Jack Adams, Robbie Shaw, Dan Norton, James Merriman, Chris Ashwin, Jamie Miller and Sam Alford.

"These senior players and the academy's outstanding crop of talent that we had already ring fenced and secured for next season - the likes of Ollie Hayes, Darren Barry and Mako Vunipola - give us some real belief that a top-four finish is a very realistic ambition," added Booy in a statement on the club's website.

Lessons have been learned and I believe we will be stronger for this

Bristol chairman Chris Booy

"Other players who were due to stay if we had gained promotion, but who have now left, have all gone to play Premiership rugby (with one exception) and we wish them well.

"They are good enough to play at the top level and my only regret is that we were unable to provide that opportunity for them here at Bristol next season."

Booy admitted that the task of overcoming the disappointment of Bristol's defeat by Exeter had not been easy.

"Tough decisions have to be made but the way the large majority of players and staff have responded to the difficult demands we have made of them in the last month simply goes to show what an outstanding group of people we have," he said.

"Lessons have been learned and I believe we will be stronger for this. We still need investment and we continue to work hard to identify new sources of longer term funding, but in the short term we need to generate as much revenue as we can."