Remember that guy that had Dennis Cometti frothing at the mouth on ANZAC Day 2002, you know, the 17-year old kid that won the ANZAC Day medal that year and sent the AFL world into a frenzy?
Anyway, that guy is Mark McGough.
McGough will forever be remembered for that game, winning best on ground in the ANZAC Day clash with Essendon in just his second game at senior level and still at high school.
Mick Malthouse even said that out of the 11 Anzac Day encounters he was a part of, McGough winning the medal in 2002 was his favourite memory.
Picked up late in the 2001 draft, many thought Collingwood’s third round selection of a 17-year old was a little bit odd.
But he wasted little time in proving the doubters wrong with his aforementioned second performance.
His career would progress very slowly from there though, playing 37 games for the Magpies across three seasons and struggling to hold down a permanent spot in the side.
McGough’s lumbering running style and slow pace became a struggle in his game, and subsequently the butt of many tortoise related jokes.
He became quite renowned for his skills in the wet while with the Pies, putting in some of his best performances under the slippery conditions of rain.
The boggy slow pace of the game probably helped with his speed problems.
At just 20, he was delisted at the end of the 2004 season by Collingwood but quickly threw his hat into that year’s draft, eventually being nabbed in the third round (again) by the Adelaide Crows for the following year.
Poor form and a losing interest in the game saw him down in reserve grade more often than not in his first year with the club, playing just nine games that season.
He would back that up with three games in 2006 before being delisted, in what was his last year in the AFL.
He would spend some time away from the game after his departure from the Crows, educating himself through university, before reappearing in the WAFL a few years later.
In all, McGough played a respectable 49 games at senior level, but it will always be that explosion onto the scene and the fanfare that followed such a young man into the land of giants that will define his career.
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