Wilkshire played out the final weeks of his illustrious career in Wolves colours last season, before announcing his retirement at the end of the 2018 NPL season.

With Jacob Timpano standing down as Wolves coach, it didn't take long for Wilkshire's name to come up as a potential replacement.

Having retired so recently, the former Socceroo was tentative about the prospect of jumping straight into the coaching game.

Some encouragement from his wife saw Wilkshire take on the job and now, almost 12 months down the track, he couldn't be happier with the decision.

"I didn't want to coach," Wilkshire said. "I wanted to be involved in the club, but I didn't want to coach. I was quickly coming out of football, I was retired, I never really had any aspirations to become a coach.

"Tory (Lavalle) and Shep (Chris Sheppard) offered me the opportunity and my initial reaction was no. After speaking to my wife, she persuaded me to take it on, so I did.

"Like anything in life, if you're going to do something, you give your all, you try and do it properly to the best of your ability and that's pretty much what we've done.

"I believe many things happen for a reason. You don't realise it at the time, but afterwards, I look back on that moment my wife convinced me to take it on, it was obviously a fantastic decision and one I'm glad I took the opportunity."

Taking charge of a team that had made the finals just twice in the past 10 years, many expected Wilkshire's first year at the helm to be a challenging one.

Instead, the 37-year-old has been able to draw on lessons learned throughout a 19-year professional career that saw him spend time in England, the Netherlands, Russia and Australia.

Read more: Wolves' big moment arrives. Celebrate it

Far from the wooden spoon contenders some predicted, Wilkshire has turned the Wolves into NPL premiers and he concedes his first year on the sidelines has triggered a desire to coach at the top flight.

"It's a funny situation I find myself in, I didn't have any ambitions to coach at all, now I'm enjoying it.

"My current goal is to get the Wolves into the A-League, I believe the region deserves and the club deserves to be in the A-League.

"There's a lot of things I want to achieve and that's definitely one of them. I want to see the club going to the A-League and I've got a lot of affiliations with my old clubs as well that I'd love to possibly return to as a coach down the line.

"The ultimate goal would be to end up coaching one day back at my old club Dynamo Moscow, which I have very fond memories and was a big part of my life. We'll see what happens, I'm happy at the moment."

Wilkshire may be starting to consider his future options, but first, he's firmly focused on securing the Wolves a grand final victory later this month.

"We're trying to develop every week. We have standards and we want to keep lifting the bar and we do, we've improved every week.

"We want to win every week, it doesn't matter that we're crowned premiers, we've still got four more games, Marconi, Sydney FC and then two finals, to win."

While you're with us the Illawarra Mercury is offering sport readers 20% off an annual digital subscription. Sign up to stay up to date with all the local sports you love for only $3.00 a week. Terms and conditions apply.