Panton Hill coach Simon Amore knows eyes will be on his club after a busy summer
Panton Hill has had arguably the best recruiting campaign of the NFNL off-season and coach Simon Amore knows that comes with higher expectations.
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To paraphrase a well-known superhero cliche, with big recruits comes big expectations.
And perhaps no other club has had as big an off-season in the Northern Football Netball League than Division 2’s Panton Hill.
The Redbacks recruiting team has had a superb summer, luring 2021 Division 2 league best-and-fairest, premiership player and four-time Team of the Year gun Tom Keys from Lower Plenty to Cracknell Reserve.
Bears premiership teammates Tom Blake and Matt Duckworth will join Keys and Josh Callaway teams back up with Greensborough premiership mates Scott Conte and Brent Ryan.
Fitzroy Stars’ leading goalkicker Riley Livingstone is a significant addition, while Jake Rowe (Greensborough), Connor Lidgerwood (Diamond Creek), Kyle Crosby (Mooroolbark) and Lachlan Buckley (Warrandyte) have also come on board.
Together with Team of the Year midfielder Sam Parks, brothers Ollie and Nathan, Daniel Freeman and Jack Ryan, it looks a finals contending team.
Panton Hill coach Simon Amore admits expectations will be high.
“Absolutely, it’s an opportunity to raise our expectations,” Amore said.
“To some degree it’s a different look for us and there’s been a bit of noise about us over the pre-season and that’s warranted.
“We’re coming from a long way back, we’re under no illusions, but we think we’ve done everything we could since last season finished to climb the ladder and push as high as we can.
“We’re obviously really pleased with how the recruiting drive went, we targeted pretty specific areas.
“We’re fortunate those players were keen to jump on board with us and as, is often the case, they can bring across one or two more.”
Keys has been a star of Division 2 for the past two seasons, winning the league medal and finishing third in the Coaches’ MVP in 2021, featuring in the 2021 and 2022 Team of the Year and kicking 25 goals (12 games) and 40 goals (19 games) in each season.
Amore has no plans to change his gun recruit’s style.
“Keysy has been one of the premier players in the competition, he’s been a dominant midfield-forward and we don’t have any plans to mix that up,” Amore said.
“The strength we’ll have through the midfield with Sam Parks, Scott Conte after an interrupted season last year, and Tom will add to that – and he kicked 40 goals last year as a forward – so hopefully he can continue that form.”
Blake is recovering from a knee reconstruction from last year, while Livingstone is expected to play as a deep forward and pinch-hit in the ruck.
“Tom’s tracking well, we’re excited to have him back home after he started his career with us in 2014, which was my last year,” Amore said.
“He’s about eight months post op now and looking to start change of direction, so there’s no time frame on Tom but we’re hopeful of getting him back in the second half of the year and that will be pretty exciting.
“Riley, we’re really excited about, he was probably our No.1 target in the off-season.
“We’re really chuffed to get him, he didn’t have a direct connection to the club, but we’d obviously played against him and he’d taken us to the cleaners a couple of times.”
Amore has also been impressed by the likes of Freeman, who returned to the club mid-season last year, Jack Ryan and youngster Lidgerwood.
The Redbacks will also have a famous name running out for the club with Riley Prestigiacomo signing on, the son of Collingwood great Simon.
Panton Hill will ramp up preparations for Round 1 with a pair of practice matches, first against Roxburgh Park on Saturday and then West Coburg.
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The Hillmen will open the season against premiership favourite Eltham at Central Park on Good Friday, April 7 in what looms as a massive test of the club’s credentials.
“Eltham is undoubtedly the yardstick, they’ve recruited really well and they’d still be smarting from the grand final,” Amore said.
“It’s a good match-up for us, we’ll find out exactly were we stand in Round 1, and we’re looking forward to the challenge.”
Panton Hill is also expecting to field an under-19s team for the first time since 2018 in a massive boost to the club’s depth and sustainability.
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