While Dwyer is yet to decide completely on what his immediate future holds, he told The Standard he would most likely don the yellow and black as a player or clubman next season.

Dwyer lead the Tigers to a premiership in his first year at the helm in 2014, and went agonisingly close to repeat flags before falling to Dennington in last year’s decider.

Dwyer said he would take time away from coaching to freshen up.

“You think you know a lot when you go into coaching and you soon find out that you don’t, so it will be good to take a bit of a step back for a bit,” he said. “If another coaching opportunity arises in the future, hopefully I’ll be better for it for my time here.

“The premiership was a real highlight of my time here. I think it reflected the work the club had put in prior to that. Guys like Jack Kelson had put in the hard yards in recruiting and setting the club up.

“We arrived and the planets aligned for us. We picked up some strong recruits and they found form at the right time of the year. We can’t take all the credit.”

Dwyer said the support of the club’s committee and assistants Joe Woonton, James Kelly and Jeremy Mitchem had been “fantastic” in his time at the club.

“I’m pretty happy to continue on in some form (at Merrivale) but I’ll speak to my wife and see how it all goes.”