Australian Football

As a youngster Mitchell White preferred rugby league to football but once he tried his hand at the native game he was hooked. By 1990, aged just seventeen, he was playing league football for Subiaco, and at the end of the year he was one of two priority draft picks taken by West Coast, the other being Glen Jakovich. Used mainly as a tall defender early in his AFL career he could also provide a marking option in the forward lines when the occasion called for it. Later in his career he was used as a permanent forward to good effect, with his tally of 37 goals in 1996 being good enough to top West Coast’s list. He made the AFL All Australian team the same year.

White played on a half back flank in the Eagles’ 1992 grand final defeat of Geelong but was unfortunate to miss out a couple of years later when the Cats again provided the grand final opposition. The aforementioned move to the forward lines subsequently revitalised and may even have extended his career.

In 2001, after 151 AFL games and 103 goals for the Eagles, he transferred to Geelong, but after a solid first season his form declined and overall he managed just 23 games and 21 goals for the Cats before retiring. The Subiaco phase of his career between 1990 and 1994 had seen him play 44 WAFL games and register 44 goals.

Author - John Devaney