ALL AUSTRALIAN defender Jeremy McGovern says he needs to work on his durability to give West Coast the option to use him in the ruck more next season.
McGovern has had an outstanding season in defence earning his first All Australian honour.
The Eagles have a plethora of key defenders but are light on ruck options for next season given Nic Naitanui will miss most of the season as he recovers from a knee reconstruction.
McGovern is only 195cm but he played a lot of juniors and WAFL football as a forward/second ruck.
He was used in the role in round 19 against Collingwood when Naitanui was out injured and he again did some rucking in the last quarter against the Western Bulldogs in Thursday night's elimination final loss at Domain Stadium.
McGovern is such a valuable commodity in defence that coach Adam Simpson has been loath to use him in the ruck.
But McGovern said he needed to work on building some strength in his body to give the coach the option.
"Probably my durability so I can get around the ground a bit and give Simmo a few more options," McGovern told AFL.com.au.
"Obviously, if he wants to throw me forward or in the ruck, I can go there and play well there, whereas I'm probably a bit sore at the moment. Something like that I'll probably work on."
McGovern said the Eagles were left hurting following the shock loss to the Bulldogs. He said the failure to progress beyond the first week of the finals was as disappointing as losing last year's Grand Final to Hawthorn.
"It probably hurts just as much as last year really," McGovern said.
"We made the Grand Final last year but we probably weren't expected to make it that far. But this year we really had our sights set on going pretty deep in the finals and that's what's disappointing. We didn't get that done ..."
Simpson said it felt like a wasted year in the aftermath of the loss to the Bulldogs and McGovern did not disagree.
"You could probably look at it like that," McGovern said.
"We might have let it slip. We played some good footy throughout the year, which got us into this position and ... we just didn't rock up and the Dogs played better than we did."
