Devon Meadows has boosted its midfield stocks ahead of 2026 as the club prepares for its first season in Division 1 of the Mornington Peninsula Football Netball League (MPFNL).
The Panthers have signed two midfield guns from Drouin in the Gippsland League, with Jarrod Marshall and Kye Quirk both signing on at Devon Meadows.
Marshall was the captain at Drouin for three seasons and will offer plenty of leadership and experience to the young and emerging Panthers squad, playing as a midfielder/forward.
While Quirk is coming off a strong season with Drouin which saw him named in the best in 15 out of 18 matches, the star midfielder also played a season at Northern Bullants in the VFL in 2021 and has also won two best and fairests at the Hawks.
Devon Meadows coach Ryan Hendy said both of the recruits were excited to play at the top level of the MPFNL.
“One of the past players at Devon Meadows had a bit of a relationship with Kye and with us going up into the premier division, he wanted to play as a good a standard of footy as possible,” he said.
“We had a chat to him and looked at his resume which was fantastic, so we were very excited to get him on board.
“Jarrod has captained Drouin for a few years and is pretty close with Kye, once he found out that Kye was going to come over and better his footy, he decided to come across as well.”
Hendy said the addition of the two big-bodied midfielders would be vitally important to help the team compete, combining with stars Joel Hillis and Nick Battle.
“We had a good look at some of the midfields that run around in Division 1 and we realised that we had two or three mids as good as their blokes, but the midfield needs to run deeper,” he said.
“So we have targeted a few strong bodied mids and now we are really confident that we have enough good midfielders that can hold us in good stead and help our young blokes like Ky Williams and Jack Wilson develop further.
“We are not going up to Division 1 to make up the numbers, we are going to go up there full steam, to crash in and see what comes from it.”
