Former Dragons and Test prop Jason Ryles has been appointed as the Wests Red Devils' new head coach in the Illawarra Coal League for the next three seasons.

Ryles will replace Reece Simmonds who has coached Wests for the past two years.

Wests president Mat Reh yesterday said Simmonds had been offered a position within the club and he was awaiting his response.

Ryles is currently playing for NRL premiers Melbourne Storm.

This decision marks a homecoming for Ryles, who is a Berkeley and Wests junior and came up through the Illawarra Steelers' NSWRL junior representative ranks to play NRL and represent NSW and Australia.

"It was basically that Jason wanted to coach and he wanted to coach his old club," Reh said.

"We had a chat with him and did everything we could and hoped it would come off. I spoke to the [leagues club] board.

"We've only had two others [Wests juniors who have played for Australia] who have come back and coached us. Those were 'Joe' [John Dorahy] and Royce [Ayliffe].

"We really needed to have him here."

To obtain the services of a current NRL front rower with such vast experience at the highest level as a captain-coach is a coup for Wests and by extension for the Illawarra Coal League.

"Especially as he's a local junior ... that's a good thing," Reh said.

"Basically the esteem he's held in the district it's great to see him coming back and putting something back into the local league from what he's come from."

Even though he was a member of the Storm's playing roster last year, injury prevented him from playing in Melbourne's grand final-winning team.

So, barring injury, this year may well be his last chance to go out at the elite level by playing in a grand final as Melbourne is one of the main premiership contenders along with South Sydney and the Sydney Roosters.

In his long and illustrious career, Ryles has also played for the St George Illawarra Dragons and Sydney Roosters along with Catalans in the UK Super League.

Ryles played 15 Tests for Australia between 2001-05, toured with the Kangaroos in 2001, represented NSW from 2002-05 and played Tri Nations in 2004-05.

Even though Ryles has enormous experience, in his past two seasons he has played under the guidance of premiership coach Craig Bellamy and alongside three of Australia's great players colloquially known as "The Big Three" in captain and hooker Cameron Smith, halfback Cooper Cronk and fullback Billy Slater together with the Storm's injured five-eighth Gareth Widdop, who will be playing for the Dragons next year.