Temora’s three-month search for a new coach ended on Tuesday night when Wooden signed a one-year deal with the Kangaroos.

Wooden replaces Christin Macri, who decided to stand down after two years at the helm.

Wooden has previously coached his home club Lockhart for two seasons back in 2013-14 and is excited by the new opportunity at Temora.

“I can’t wait,” Wooden said.

“It’s a pretty good club. I haven’t heard a bad work about it, only good things.

“The list is looking good. The boys from Canberra are coming back again and I think we’ll have about 14 players from their last premiership team.

“I was really keen to coach again. I would have liked to coach Lockhart a bit longer but with a young family I had to step away. Now when the opportunity came up again, I grabbed it with both hands.”

Wooden, who spent a season at Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong in 2015, has only managed 11 games over the past two years due to injuries.

He underwent minor knee surgery mid-year and will be ready to hit the ground running for pre-season.

Wooden, 28, wants to steer Temora back to finals.

“Definitely, there is a bit of pressure there to get them back where they were,” Wooden said.

“The biggest thing last year was that they didn’t have the depth. This year we should have a good 27 to 28 first graders so hopefully we can get back to playing finals and push deep into finals.”

New Temora president Peter Gerhard is thrilled with Wooden’s appointment.

“We’re very happy. Everything we’ve looked at and through the interviews has been fantastic,” Gerhard said.

“He spoke very well and has good ideas. Moving forward as a footy club, we’ve gone from a non-playing coach to a playing coach and we had a lot of success with a good quality playing coach. We’re certainly looking towards that again.”

Temora hope to announce further signings in coming days.