McGovern has one real job: plonk himself at the place the other team is most likely to kick it, and then try and mark it. It turns out he's really good at it - All-Australian good, two years in a row.
As I said earlier, the best way to stop him doing that is to have someone good enough that he needs to man them up. We don't have that person.
So, if McGovern is standing in the most dangerous spot for Freo to kick it forward, the options are:
i. Don't kick it and wait for 30 men to get behind the ball;
ii. Kick it to a less dangerous spot where he isn't; or
iii. Kick it to the dangerous spot and hope someone makes a contest.
None of those are good options. There is the magical-unicorn-tooth-fairy option of somehow in a game of high-intensity and while being smashed in the middle we slot 45m diagonal bullet passes to Ballantye and Matera, but that's not really a high-percentage option, and they don't create any separation on a lead (Matera for one is slower than I had remembered).
If anything, I though we tended a little too much towards kicking it to less dangers spots down the flank to avoid him.
But sometimes when you're under pressure in the middle, the only option other than getting tackled and getting pinged is to roost if 50m as far forward as you can. We did that a bit today, but that's how these things go in a Derby. West Coast we just as guilty of that most of the day.
I think you need to acknowledge that McGovern is really good. We all know we were going to be at risk of him picking off kicks with no arial strength to speak of. That doesn't mean it's easy to fix.
I could have told you that if West Coast were running into the 50m and could hit-up JK on the lead he would kick some goals. He did, but that doesn't mean Pearce did anything wrong, or Lyon could have done anything to stop it.
