With four seasons as captain under his belt, Perry has stepped up to take over the coaching role from his older brother Tom and Ben Willis at the Bulldogs this season.

The 25-year-old has always boasted an old head on young shoulders and will now look to impart some of that wisdom on a wider section of the club.

He believes the four years of captaincy has him well placed to take on coaching duties.

"The last few years obviously being captain has helped me. I was obviously helping out along the way, doing what captains do," Perry said.

"I've always been interested in coaching and helped with all the juniors and obviously being captain the last few years has put me in the right position to have a crack at being coach.

"Benny and Tom did a fantastic job the last few years but it was probably time for a change. I don't think people can coach for extended periods of time, I think it becomes a bit stale. It's probably the perfect time for me to step up and try and give back to the club."

Perry recently left Cricket NSW to manage the Junee Recreation Centre and explained how that move also paved the way for the coaching opportunity.

"While I was at Cricket NSW, I was probably doing too much cricket," he said.

"When I was at Cricket NSW, I still loved cricket obviously, but playing on the weekends became a bit of a chore because you're doing it too much during cricket season."

Wagga RSL kicked off their training on Sunday with an 'outstanding' turn out of more than 30 cricketers despite no start date for the season set in stone yet.

Perry said he takes on the coaching job with the goal of achieving the ultimate with the Bulldogs. But development of the club's juniors will be just as big of a focus.

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"I think everyone strives to win a premiership. If you're not striving to win a premiership then you're probably playing for the wrong reasons," he said.

"But I think from a personal goal, and it's probably got to do with the role I had with Cricket NSW, but it comes down to development. If you've got, not so much strong juniors, but if you've got juniors that are enjoying cricket that will eventually transition into strong senior cricket.

"You can't leave your juniors as juniors and your seniors as seniors, I think you've got to be Wagga RSL, not Wagga RSL junior association and Wagga RSL senior association. That's a big thing for me.

"And don't get me wrong, that's something our club is pretty good at anyway but I think we need to continue the juniors and seniors being one big family, which will help through success there.

"The premiership's obviously the goal and if we don't finish in finals, it's probably a failure I would say. We've been there the last few years, in finals the last few years and probably haven't executed or performed how we should have in finals so anything short of playing finals cricket is probably a failure."

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