Wythers, who was born and raised in Orange before spending time in Sydney, Queensland and England coaching, was officially announced as the club's new coach on Wednesday, replacing Mark Rooke who served as coach from 2019-2021.

Wythers is hoping to stabilise recruitment and address the team culture in his first season at the club.

"The first thing is to stabilise the recruitment, build a good, solid base within the squad with our player pick-up and retention," he said.

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"But the main thing is to address the team culture, that has suffered slightly because of two difficult years with COVID-19.

"One of the big challenges for the team is distance and the younger boys moving on to Sydney or Canberra for uni.

"It's about balancing the squad, balancing that togetherness, where they enjoy playing together. As that starts to come together, we can start to look at the performances.

"If players enjoy their football and playing for each other, that means the performances come."

Wythers is also hoping to help build a pathway for young, Western players to progress through the game.

"The idea is to build a pathway for young, rural players to step up through the game," he said.

"If the club can progress as club, then that's sensational. If we can push them on to a better place, that's equally a well done job as well."

While Wythers has a lot of plans in mind for the Western club from 2022 onwards, he admits it's not necessarily going to be an overnight fix.

"It's going to be a process, it might not happen in a year but we're going in the right direction going forward," he said.

"I think we have to think long term at this point. If we do really well, sign a great player or get great team cohesion, the more we get, the more we'll take.

"We're not going to sacrifice the long term for the short term. We want to carefully and diligently do our work."

In previous years, Western have played games at Bathurst, Orange, Lithgow and Mudgee.

Wythers is hoping to consolidate the club's base in Bathurst and Orange, but isn't opposed to connecting to other communities across the region.

He confirmed he will not be playing, rather will stick to his job on the sideline.

His early years in football was in Orange, before moving to Sydney for his studies.

He would then spend time playing and coaching in Brisbane and North Queensland, before heading to the United Kingdom in 2018, getting involved with London-based Balham FC, current members of Combined Counties League Premier Division South, in the eighth level of English football.

After almost two years at the London club, Wythes returned to Sydney at the end of 2019.

Western will confirm session commencement for it's first grade and under 20s teams shortly.

The club will play in the Football NSW Men's League 3 next season, with the competition rebranded from NSW NPL 4.

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