He predicts there will be no shortage of banter as he prepares to line up against Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes, where he spent the 2017 season.

Byrne moved home to Wagga last year after a decade in Melbourne and decided on a return to Maher Oval, where he started his career.

Byrne, who turned 30 on Tuesday, was heavily pursued by a number of clubs across the region but found it difficult to choose between his home club and Saturday's opponent, the Goannas.

"I tossed and turned for a fair while," Byrne revealed.

"Once I decided I was going to play in Wagga, it was obviously either Turvey or Mango and in the end it was just family pull...it made sense to play there."

Byrne won MCUE's best and fairest in 2017 and still has some of his best friends at the club.

The round one showdown against his old club stood out immediately once Byrne laid eyes on the draw.

"It'll be good. Obviously I've still got a fair few mates at Mango," he said.

"Mango are a fantastic club, extremely well run and no doubt they will be pretty well drilled.

"It will be good to play against Pricey (Ryan Price) and those sort of blokes. It would be well and truly more than a decade ago since I played against them. I'm sure there will be a little bit of banter and hopefully I'm on the right end of it at the end."

Byrne has been named in the ruck for Turvey Park on Saturday, amongst a predominantly young Bulldogs line-up. 

He has enjoyed mixing it with the young faces throughout pre-season training and is looking forward to getting started on Saturday.

"It's been really good actually. The main reason for heading back was a, it's a fantastic club and b, my sister Alex plays netball there," he said.

"There probably wasn't all that many blokes I knew there when I came back, a lot of them had hung up the boots since I was last there. Billy Cerato and a few others are still there but guys like Matt Bailey and the Ashcroft brothers are all really nice fellas so it's been good."

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