MAROON turned Southern Roo, Cody Deutscher, has returned to his junior club for the 2022 season hoping to boost them deep into finals and bolster the midfield stocks.

The 25-year-old played his juniors at Coleraine and some senior football before he sustained a bad shoulder injury and then decided on a change of scenery with Harrow-Balmoral.

After putting pen to paper, Deutscher said he was looking forward to running out on Silvester Oval for the first time in five years.

“It will be really good I reckon, a good experience, I thought I’d come back to the home club, and I think I’ll really enjoy it,” he said.

“I’ve always wanted to come back but just didn’t know when the time was right, and it felt like the time was right (now).”

“Working down this way again now has made it a lot easier to make that decision.”

The running midfielder reflected fondly on his time at the powerhouse club, which included two senior premierships and a runner-up club best and fairest in the 2019 premiership year.

The 2019 season saw Deutscher take huge steps in his development, gaining a regular spot in the star-studded senior midfield alongside the likes of Nick Pekin, Eric Guthrie and Will Plush.

He kicked 32 goals from the midfield across his 16 games with a standout performance of seven goals against Laharum.

“It was a great experience that’s for sure, it’s a great club and I really enjoyed it, I was fortunate enough to get two flags while I was up there,” Deutscher said.

“I learnt a lot about myself and my football up there.”

The Deutscher name is well known at the Maroons through Cody’s father, David ‘Boof’ Deutscher, who is a club legend.

“He played very close to 400 senior games, so he played his whole footy career and I played most of my juniors there, then a bit of senior footy,” he said.

“It’s going to be great to be back with a few mates I haven’t played with since juniors and with Ryan McClure as the new coach, it will be a cracker year hopefully.

Harrow-Balmoral legend and Coleraine senior coach, McClure, was another big drawcard for Deutscher signing on, the advantage of having seen Deutscher play in the blue and white will allow McClure to get the best output from him very early on in the year.

“He (McClure) was really supportive through the 2019 season, he would always come up and give me a little rev up, it was really good, from what I’ve seen with his junior coaching, he’s going to be unreal,” Deutscher said.

He said playing finals was the goal and hoped to make a strong contribution to the engine room in the hope of going all the way with the Maroons in 2022.