Turvey Park coach Cal Dooley has welcomed back a familiar face to the kennel as he starts preparations for 2024

After a season away at Coolamon, Chase Grintell has returned to Maher Oval and Dooley said it was fantastic to have him back at the Bulldogs.

"My first season at the club he was a terrific bloke to have around the team," Dooley said.

"We are still quite a young side and I thought bringing back some experience to the club would be pretty key for us next year.

"He's a great club person and a good experienced head to bring back to have around the boys and around myself.

"We are pretty happy to have him back on board."

Dooley is undertaking his first off-season as a senior coach and he believes that things are building up nicely ahead of next season.

"It's going pretty good," he said.

"We are in that midst of the worst time of the year for coaches with recruiting and cold-calling and all that type of stuff.

"We've done a pretty good job of retaining pretty much everyone at the club from last year.

"We are obviously losing (Luke) Fellows and Brad (Ashcroft) to the SANFL, but we have done a very good job of making sure that we keep the playing list together and we are just looking to add a couple more as every club is in that period right now.

"We are looking alright."

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The loss of Fellows will be felt by the Bulldogs next season and Dooley admitted that they were on the lookout to try and add some midfield depth to somewhat cover his departure.

"We are obviously looking to replace Luke," he said.

"It's going to be a big hole when you lose your best and fairest and your best on ground in the grand final.

"So we are just looking to get a bit more midfield depth the cover the loss of Lukey.

"We feel like that is probably the biggest issue at the moment especially since we've retained everyone and are just after a bit of midfield depth."

Dooley said that he's enjoying the new challenge of tackling his first off-season as a senior coach and revealed that he's turned to some former coaches to help him prepare for the role.

"It's not too bad and it's definitely different," he said.

"It's a new experience having to try and recruit and stuff like that but it's pretty exciting.

"I just had a meeting last week with my old coach down at De La Salle in the VAFA and picked his brain about how he likes to run his pre-season and stuff like that.

"I was just picking up tips off him about how I want to do my pre-season this year and I've been picking Zoc's (Michael Mazzocchi) brain all off-season as well.

"Just to best prepare myself and make sure that when all the boys come along in early January that I've got everything running smoothly so they can hit the track and prep ourselves for going back to back and winning another flag.

"It's all exciting and new and I'm loving it at the moment."

After commuting from Melbourne for the past two seasons, Dooley said that he's planning to make the move up to Wagga in mid-December.

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