Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes sign 2021 Gerald Clear Medal winner Harry Fitzsimmons and key forward Dean Lord

The Goannas have won the race for Fitzsimmons with the 2021 Gerald Clear Medallist set to take his football to Mangoplah Sportsground next season after five years at East Wagga-Kooringal.

Joining Fitzsimmons will be Queanbeyan key forward Dean Lord, who is set to provide a much-needed focal point for MCUE at centre-half-forward.

Lord played eight first grade games at Queanbeyan this season, with his most successful stint coming in 2018 when returning 27 goals from eight appearances.

Fitzsimmons at just 23 has established himself as one of the premier midfielders of the Farrer League, highlighted by his league best and fairest win last year.

MCUE co-coach Jeremy Rowe is excited to welcome Fitzsimmons to the club.

"We couldn't be any happier to bring Harry into our club, both as a player and as a person," Rowe said.

"Harry's got a very impressive footy resume for someone who's in his early to mid 20s. He obviously made his senior debut in the RFL at quite a young age and then he moved over to East Wagga and played rep footy, won a league medal and backed that up with a runner up best and fairest.

"With that, we've got someone who in a short amount of time, and someone who's quite young in years, has really established themselves as one of the better footballers in and around the area and we look forward to both what Harry will bring to our team and our club but what we can also try to bring to Harry to continue his development."

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Rowe believes the addition of Fitzsimmons, who made his senior debut at Riverina League rivals Coolamon, will help bolster the Goannas' midfield brigade.

"Amongst other things, we definitely wanted to stiffen up our midfield," he said.

"That's certainly no disrespect intended to anyone that went through the middle this year but I'm sure that they will understand, some guys are genuine midfielders and some guys go through there that can pinch hit for you and hold their own. We're really trying to push towards having six genuine midfielders so we can be really strong when it comes to our rotations and we see Harry as someone who can slide into our midfield line-up and bring what we hope to be an A grade midfielder straight away.

"The creation of midfield depth and bringing in someone who is still at a development point of his career but still has already achieved quite a bit is something we're really excited about."

Lord arrives having won Queanbeyan's leading goalkicker in 2018. He was restricted to limited football over the next three years due to osteitis pubis and returned this year but was left out of Queanbeyan's senior team for their successful finals campaign.

Rowe believes the 25-year-old will prove a huge asset at MCUE.

"It's huge for us," he said.

"I'll be the first to put my hand up and say, I knew full well last year we weren't going to be able to replace George Kendall like for like but we actually didn't feel like we necessarily needed a pure centre-half-forward to get us through the year. As long as the season continued on I certainly found out that that was an incorrect statement. We had guys who are so much better in other areas trying to plug that gap and it just ended up being an overwhelming situation for those guys.

"Dean's a big imposing figure, there's no missing him on the footy field. He's proven at senior level in 2018 by winning Queanbeyan's first grade goalkicking and he would have no doubt achieved a great deal more in the AFL Canberra scene if he hadn't of had the osteitis pubis battle for three years.

"Another part of the reason we really placed value in Dean is the fact that he seems to be a really good person and a real larrikin to bring into our club, and while there's no doubt that his hunger to play footy and to succeed after missing Queanbeyan's flags is as high as you could ask for, he's also continued to exist within a very strongly cultured and well-organised football club at the same time.

"So we think we've got that real blend of someone who's as hungry as can be but will come out of a place where he's used to winning, he knows to win and he's been training and playing around people who have no doubt driven really high standards to achieve the best that Queanbeyan have achieved.

"We're really keen on seeing Dean in the blue and gold ASAP."

The arrival of Fitzsimmons and Lord are the first signings for MCUE after the announcement of Rowe and Nelson Foley as a co-coaching partnership next year.

The Goannas have bid farewell to co-captain Nick Collins, key forward Trent Castles and midfielder Tom Keogh but hope to have more signings on the way.

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