The 42-year-old was confirmed as coach of the 2020 premiers and grand final winners on Monday, replacing player-coach Josh Rose.

Former Newcastle Breakers coach Lee Sterrey was appointed in July to take over next season but he parted ways with the club just days after their 1-0 November 8 grand final victory over Maitland.

The Eagles won their fifth premiership and fourth grand final in the past six years despite the loss of coach Damian Zane before a ball was kicked this season. Replacement Keelan Hamilton then resigned after three games, leaving Rose to take on the role.

The recruitment of Bridges, a former star player with Leeds and Sunderland in the EPL, is a coup for the Eagles.

Bridges this year completed his coaching pro licence while an assistant at Lambton Jaffas, where he played in 2015.

Eagles administrator Warren Mills said the appointment of a pro licenced coach with Bridges' playing experience at the elite level was exciting for the club.

Bridges was grateful for the chance locally after the COVID-19 pandemic stalled his hopes of coaching overseas. He was among the last three in contention for the job at former club Carlisle United in England late last year.

"I was helping Lambton Jaffas last year and I've been looking for a couple of overseas opportunities, but with COVID and whatnot it hasn't really developed, so I was just going to finish off the pro diploma and Millsy approached us," Bridges said.

"It was nice to know that a club like them were interested. We had a chat about it and everything matches up. They've got a good project going on with their ground, so I said to Millsy, 'let's see what we can do'."

"When you are going through your [coaching] badges, it's great to be involved, but you want to put your stamp, your own identity onto a team, a style of play and be able to do your own things, so I was parting ways [with Jaffas] anyway and then this opportunity came up."

Bridges, a former Jets youth coach and first-team assistant, said the Eagles' performances this year amid the changes "showed me they've got a good club culture".

"Behind the scenes, Warren Mills is a man with a passion and a very good vision on where he wants the football to go with Edgeworth Eagles," he said.

"He's invested a lot of time and money in there and then he's got people like Brad Wheeler and Sash [Andonovski] behind him helping out. Then there's a guy like Gary Wilson, who will be helping me out as well as coaching the 16s.

"We had some meetings before I agreed and I just felt the vision the club and Warren have got, and the history the club has and their achievements last season with all the stuff going on off the field, it takes a lot of club stability to make sure the players stay focused.

"They had a really good season considering everything that went on and you've to give credit to Josh Rose for coming in and playing his part as a player and a coach, because that is not easy to do.

"It was an opportunity and one I was pleased I thought about and I'm looking forward to getting started."

The Eagles have already lost Jose Atayde and Keanu Moore to Broadmeadow, where Zane is now coach. Leading scorer Kristian Brymora is trialling in Brisbane, while import goalkeeper Shayne Van As has departed.

The core of the side, though, is set to return. Bridges said "we've got a few more numbers we need to get on board" but "not much needs changing" at the successful club.

"You don't want to change too much because they have got the winning culture there, so if you come in and try to change too many things, it will all fall down," he said.

"It's just about trying to enhance what they've got there. It's just putting the sprinkles on top of it because you don't want to get offside the players and staff who are already there.

"You've got to just embrace it and set them new goals and targets to try and do better than what they did this year, so it's going to be really tough to emulate that.

"But that's the standards you expect. There weren't too many teams beating them this year, so it's going to be a good challenge."

Rose was not able to replace Sterrey because he had already accepted the job as the Central Coast Mariners under-18 coach.

Mills, though, said Rose was happy with the news Bridges was on board and he "wants to play on".

Other senior players were also pleased with the appointment on Monday and "everyone is pretty excited about it", Mills said.

Bridges started his coaching career as the Jets youth boss then first-team assistant before resigning in January 2015 because of the mass sackings at the club by then-owner Nathan Tinkler.

Work has started this week on a $2 million upgrade of amenities at Edgeworth's home ground, Jack McLaughlan Oval.

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