Brisbane Roar have bolstered their squad by adding local talent Jez Lofthouse.  The 21-year old winger joins them from NPL Queensland's Olympic FC.  While he played for Olympic as recently as mid-September, Lofthouse has been training with the Roar for several weeks.

The young attacker made the NPL Queensland's Team of the Year last season and had previously won the league's Young Player of the Year award.  

Speaking of his signing with the Roar Lofthouse said: 

"I'm pretty stoked about it. Growing up in Brisbane, coming to games as a young kid, it's pretty surreal to be in and around this environment.
 
"To play professionally is always something I've wanted to do and to do it in my hometown is pretty awesome.
 
"I feel in the past I might not have been ready to come into this environment, but now I'm feeling better than ever and I'm really prepared to get into it. I'm just keen to get started.
 
"I'm very grateful to Olympic FC and mainly Ben [Cahn] my coach there who gave me the opportunity to play for Olympic and had full faith in me the last four or so years."
 

 
Lofthouse's new head coach Warren Moon stated about his new signing:
 
"Our support as a club for young Queensland footballers is well known and Jez fits that profile.
 
"He's a skillful, exciting player who has fitted in nicely with the group during his time with us this pre-season.
 
"Jez has done very well at NPL level for a few years now and we look forward to helping him take this next step in his career."
 
This is the sixth off-season signing for the roar who have added Jordan Holmes, Luke Ivanovic, Juan Lescano, Nikola Mileusnic and Matti Steinmann to their squad.  They join Josh Brindell-South, Cyrus Dehmie and Alex Parsons who re-signed for the club. 
 
Masato Kudo, Jamie Young, Dylan Wenzel-Halls, Golgol Mebrahtu, Riku Danzaki, Joe Champness, Jordan Courney-Perkins, Antonee Burke-Gilroy, Macauley Gillesphey and Danny Kim all left in the off season. 

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