Willie Peters has earned a coaching reprieve at South Sydney after he was sacked by Manly last month following a post-season NRL bust up.
Peters will take up a development role under new coach Anthony Seibold at the Rabbitohs, a club where he played 38 games in the halves for in two stints between 1997 and 2004.
"Willie Peters is developing into a fine young coach and we're happy to be able to bring him home to the Rabbitohs in this important development role," Souths general manager Shane Richardson said.
Peters will work closely with the younger players in the Rabbitohs' NRL squad, as well as the club's junior teams.
The appointment is the first in former assistant Seibold's new tenure as Rabbitohs coach, after he was announced as a replacement for Michael Maguire last month.
Peters was a junior coach at Souths between 2009 and 2015, before he took up the Wests Tigers' under-20s role in 2016.
He moved to Manly as an assistant at the start of this season, but that ended badly when police were called to break up a fight between he and fellow assistant Dan Ferris in the week after the Sea Eagles' finals exit.
Peters was issued an infringement notice by police, and was released by the Sea Eagles two days later as reports emerged of bullying at the club.
