It’s A Big Year For…. #11 Mitch McGovern

Written by Ari Stamatakos

Throughout the 2022 Pre-season, Blue Abroad will be providing content to cover everything you need to know about the Carlton Football Club. For what should be an exciting and intriguing 2022, let's take an in-depth look at some players on the Carlton list and preview their 2022 season.

Why is it a big year?

It's the oldest trick in the book. When a forward fails to achieve the heights that they could, before pushing them out the door and wiping your hands with them, you try them out as a defender. 

Carlton has precedent for this. Turning Liam Jones from an average at best key forwards, to one of the best key defenders in the game - it was truly a sight to behold. Now, it's Mitch McGovern's turn. 

After coming across from Adelaide a couple of seasons ago, he has never really hit the ground running. Struggling with form and fitness, ‘Gov’ has never really endeared himself to the Carlton faithful. 

The similarities with Jones are near uncanny. Both are very athletic with an excellent jumping reach. Both struggled to read the ball well as a forward and got caught out of position plenty of times. And both were seeming left to be pushed out the door if they didn’t out of the rut they were in.

Now, can ‘Gov’ do what Jones did in one off-season? Maybe. And there are many factors, both from a personal side and a coaching side that gives us confidence that he can pull this off. 

Firstly, playing as a defender is a lot more structured than playing as a forward. As a forward, there are many avenues where you can impact a game and there are many aspects of the game you need to cover. While the extra freedom forwards have may seem like a good thing, this can hinder ‘Gov’s’ ability to perform at the level he can. 

If he transitions into defence, the structure of ‘this is your man, stop him scoring’ can provide that security in his mind, in that he knows he doesn’t have to do anything extra to meet a required goal.

Secondly, the coaching this year is bound to be off the charts compared to previous years. Last season, one of the key criticisms of David Teague was that he couldn't get his defensive structure to coherent. Often leaving Jones and Jacob Weitering one-out against their opponents in precarious positions. 

This year, under Michael Voss, it would be hard to get a defensive structure flakier than last season, so this more solid and connected defensive structure will make every defender seem much better than they are. 

‘Gov’ has always been a player that performs much better when he has a clear structure in his role and confidence in his ability. Michael Voss will give him both of those, thus making his transition into defence much more palatable and likely to work. 

Best Case Scenario 

The best-case scenario for Mitch McGovern is that he develops into a player that can have an impact on games worthy of the time and money the club has dedicated to him. He needs to repay the football club by performances on the field, and this transition into defence could help with that. 

We aren’t expecting All-Australian by the end of the year type development. But becoming a solid, acceptable tall defender for a club looking to make a profound push for finals football is the absolute minimum. And with the raw talent and athleticism that ‘Gov’ possesses, this shouldn't be that hard to accomplish.