Unfinished business keeps Group Nine's Weissel Medal-winner Lachlan Bristow at Tumut for another season

Bristow looked set to leave his hometown club after four seasons, including the last three in co-coach arrangements.

However despite being strongly linked to a move to Newcastle, the 29-year-old has signed on for another year in the Blues coaching set up.

The star hooker admitted he didn't feel the time was quite right to leave the club.

"We're in a great spot and that is why it would have been so hard to leave," Bristow said.

"I'm in the back end of my career so to walk away from a group of guys like that would be extremely tough."

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Bristow returned to the club to help deliver their 2019 premiership success.

He only planned on staying for one season but keeps coming back for more.

"It's a culmination of a lot of reasons, and a lot of those are away from football, as well as football reasons" Bristow said.

"I couldn't really pinpoint it down to one reason.

"It's just how everything has worked out with injuries then COVID hit when I was hoping to have that one year to win another premiership.

"Last year was cancelled and this year was disappointing and I hurt a bit as I feel like we could have gone one better.

"It's just my competitive nature and wanting to win and falling short of that is not good enough.

"I'm always pushing to do one better and that's what I'm hoping to do by staying on for next year."

Bristow will be joined by Zac Masters as co-coach for a third straight season.

Masters was sent off in the first half of Tumut's preliminary final loss to Young.

The disappointing end to their campaign is part of the reason why the pair remain at the helm.

"I'm very excited to go again with Lachie," Masters said.

"We really enjoy working together and the way that this year ended we didn't want to finish on that note.

"We'll try to go again and I don't think we should be losing too many players, if any.

"We should be at full strength heading into next year."Joe Roddy is part of the initial Canberra Raiders SG Ball squad and is likely to be the only player missing from their preliminary final loss.

With Bristow and Masters back on board, three Group Nine clubs will now have the same leadership as for another season.

They join Josh McCrone (Temora) and Nick Cornish (Young) in returning while Kangaroos, Gundagai and Albury all have new coaching set ups.

Masters believes having some continuity is an advantage.

"We know what to expect, what to expect from each other and work pretty well together," he said.

"I'm really looking forward to it and nothing really changes for the squad.

"We just have to move on and try to go one step further next year."

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