By Connor Burns
Coburg’s vice-captain Mitch Podhajski has had a unique football journey, with plenty of highs and lows.
The 25-year-old who grew up running around for Greenvale in junior footy, and watching his dad play for East Keilor, said he has always had a love affair with the game.
“My family connection to football is Dad, he played over 300 games for East Keilor, so he played a lot of senior football there,” Podhajski said.
“I have very early memories of him playing. I always remember liking football but grew up in Greenvale until I had finished Under 12’s, and then moved to Aberfeldie because I went to school at St Bernard’s in Essendon.”
Representative football followed for Podhajski after hitting the age of 16, going on to play three seasons for the Calder Cannons in the now Coates Talent League, formerly the TAC Cup. He was able to put together some impressive seasons, particularly in his top age and overage years, leading to chats with several AFL clubs.
“I definitely spoke to a lot of clubs. The thing for me at the time was based off feedback from one club, is that I didn’t have a definable elite trait at that point,” he said.
“I was kind of pretty good at most skills and most positions, but they didn’t see that translation into the AFL in terms of having an elite trait which I think was fair.”
“I don’t know whether it was right there (draft chances).”
His first introduction to the Coburg Football Club was during his overage season with the Calder Cannons. After an impressive season with the Cannons which saw him average 24 disposals and seven tackles per game, while also kicking 23 goals in a new midfield role, Coburg came knocking.
He played seven VFL games during that 2018 season and showed plenty in those outings, culminating in receiving a contract from the club.
“In my overage year I sort of had a blended year between Calder Cannons and Coburg, and that was sort of my introduction to Coburg and then following that I’ve been at Coburg ever since,” he said.
He has gone on to play over 60 games with the club since that point becoming a key figure at Coburg while being used in multiple on-field roles in that time. The vice-captain set his sights on a big off-season in an attempt to propel himself into AFL draft calculations this year, but his 2024 season soon took a turn for the worst.
Podhajski has endured several serious injuries that have kept him to just the two VFL games so far this season.
“(It) started with a broken hand in January, pretty shortly after that I had my first groin injury. Then returning from that groin injury on my first night (back) of training, I broke my ankle in two places, he said.
I returned from the broken ankle, had my second groin injury, and then most recently had another groin injury… but I’m looking and feeling significantly better now.”
The rehab from the series of injuries was challenging and strenuous but being able to stay involved in a range of different match day roles and around the club, kept Podhajski motivated to return.
“It was a fairly unique rehab timeline coming off a broken ankle, but then also a groin injury that was sort of underlying, so we had a lot of challenges with loading it. Probably in hindsight we tried to get back a little ambitiously after the ankle,” he said.
“I had to go see a specialist doctor, get blood tests, get DEXA bone scans. We were querying whether there was an underlying bone (issue) going on because I had three fractures in a couple of months.”
“All the tests come back as absolutely nothing’s wrong, so we put it down to what we suspected, just really bad luck.”
“I was still really involved with the team throughout; I’ve had plenty of different match day roles throughout the year and had some really good experiences up in the box. For the most part I was sort of down on the bench, being able to communicate and help.”
The university student said that that despite his season taking an unexpected turn of events constantly, the club’s support has meant his belief to get back fit and playing has never wavered.
“If you had of told me in January when it all started that I wouldn’t be raring to go until late July I probably wouldn’t have believed you but it’s always that hope at the end that you can come back, contribute and play some really good footy along with the support from the whole team and getting energy from them makes it easier,” he said.
“We’ve really attacked it from all ends now and I’m feeling really good to have a really good end to the year, hopefully.”
After going through last year’s home and away season winless on the back of a lot of player and staff personnel change, the club has won four games this season and been really competitive in countless other clashes.
Podhajski believes there’s been a “big shift” at the football club this season with the way the team is playing and the belief in one another.
“The biggest thing for me is we’ve won but I think even in games we haven’t won; we’re starting to play with a really clear brand and really definable game,” Podhajski said.
“It makes it easier to lose games if we’ve got a system behind it and we’ve got a brand that we can come back to. Whereas if you’re losing games, even if you’re losing closely but you kind of don’t know how you did it, that makes it harder to go forward.”
“The difference is we know how we’re doing it and we’re reproducing that every week which makes it consistent going forward. So, it makes it a lot more sustainable, I’ve seen a big shift in our brand and our game style has really developed.”
Despite his unlucky fortunes in 2024, the utility still has belief that his game could successfully transition to the elite level if he was given the opportunity.
“I had good form throughout both of those years in different roles, I’ve had belief in myself coming into Coburg and wanting to play VFL footy.
I think I could make that transition if given the opportunity and my year hasn’t gone the way we wanted it to this year, but we certainly felt that my couple of games as a forward towards the end of last year, potentially there was something there,” he said.
With dreams of playing AFL football in the back of his mind, Podhajski’s main focus is helping Coburg be successful and returning the club to their former glory.
“I don’t view Coburg as just a rep program where you’re coming here just purely for the one goal and I give much care about the team, where we’re going as a direction, so that’s my biggest driver,” he said.
“But in order to do both of those things (help draft potential and be successful at Coburg), I need to be performing as best I can so it kind of works hand in hand. Getting the most out of myself so that I can contribute to the team and hopefully team success but if something were to happen, then absolutely I would take that (AFL opportunity).”
His brother Liam also plays at Coburg, with the duo unfortunately not playing many games together of late. Away from the football field Mitch Podhajski is a busy man, working full-time as a podiatrist and also undertaking his master’s studies at Melbourne University
“I’m a podiatrist, so that’s my work. I’ve been a podiatrist for three and a half years. I’m also at uni, I’m studying a masters of Sports medicine at Melbourne, so that’s been really good over the last sort of 18 months, ticking along outside of work,” he said.
“I’m partially crazy for doing it but with full-time work, part-time uni, and basically full-time football I don’t have a lot of time for hobbies. My spare time is largely spending time with close friends and my fiancée, she’s quite busy as well so we enjoy spending weekends together.
My mum and dad live on a farm about an hour away, so a nice weekend for us would be planning nice and early, not putting anything on our cards and getting up to the farm.”
Podhajski made a successful return to the field and kicked a crucial last quarter goal to help Coburg erase a 23-point deficit. They defeated arch-rival Port Melbourne on Vicky Cleary Day game in a significant day for the football club.
