ANTHONY McGrath admits leaving Yorkshire will be a shock to the system after agreeing to take on the role of Essex’s new assistant head coach.

The White Rose stalwart from Bradford, who has played for, captained and spent the last couple of years part-time coaching his home county, links up with former team-mate Chris Silverwood at Chelmsford.

Silverwood has taken over the head coach’s role of the Division Two side, who are desperate to win promotion back to the top-flight.

McGrath, 40, went through a rigorous application process, which saw him selected from a final shortlist of four. He starts his new role a week on Monday.

“I’ve been involved with Yorkshire since I was 12 or 13-years-old. It’s going to be a bit of a shock experiencing something completely new,” he said.

“But that excites me. I want to see how different clubs do different things. It’s also a full-time role, whereas I was only part-time at Yorkshire.

“I put my CV in and got a message from the chief exec saying I’d got down to the last four.

“I went down to Chelmsford for interview, and when I got the call and the offer of the job, it was a good feeling. It was something I couldn’t turn down.

“It’s a great opportunity. I obviously know Silvers well from our time playing together.

“They’ve had a few changes off the field, and they really want to get back in the first division and challenge. They’ve got a talented group of players. Hopefully I can add a little bit of value to them.

“In the Championship, I think they’d admit themselves that they've been disappointed.

“Essex are always competitive in the shorter forms. It’s the four-day stuff where they really want to try and improve and keep their competitiveness in the one-dayers as well.

“I think it’s quite a good mix there now. There’s the older guys in Ravi Bopara, Ryan ten Doeschate and James Foster, but there’s plenty of young guys such as Tom Westley and a few who have been away with the England under 19s.

“Hopefully we get off to a good start and breed confidence from there.”

Yorkshire’s director of cricket Martyn Moxon added: “We are sorry to see Anthony leave the club. He was a major part of our success over the past couple of years as a coach.”