After playing seven seasons for Canterbury, and being a foundation Matatu member, McGoverne was still gunning to make the Black Ferns.
But she had not "cracked it", and feeling as though she needed something new, she packed her bags last year and headed to England to play for the Exeter Chiefs.
Playing in the Premiership Women’s Rugby league, McGoverne, 26, finished the season as the top points-scorer — and "absolutely loved it".
"It was definitely the best thing I could have done for myself," McGoverne said.
Leaving New Zealand as a midfielder, McGoverne reinvented herself as a first five at Exeter.
After "winging" the first few games, she retained the No 10 jersey for the season and it gave her a new challenge, getting used to the different style of rugby.
"When I first went over there . . . I was like ‘oh my god, I’m completely learning how to play rugby again’ which was quite a weird feeling.
"Now I feel like I sort of know both styles really well and I’m trying to sort of merge the two at the moment — it’s helped me all round as a player."
Adding more strings to her bow was important and she believed heading overseas gave her new perspective.
"That’s sort of why I wanted to go over there in the first place ... just to refresh my love of rugby.
"You sort of get coached by the same people, play with the same people, play the same style of rugby for that many years."
Wanting to push herself further, McGoverne is back in New Zealand, re-joining Matatu in the hope of making the Black Ferns World Cup squad next year.
"I really tossed up between staying in England and coming back here."
She thought if she didn’t give it another try then she would probably look back at her career and think "what if?"
"I’m really enjoying playing for Matatu, and hopefully if I play well, that’ll take care of itself."
McGoverne played the opening two games at both first five and second five, and was enjoying having numerous positions under her belt.
While the core values of Matatu were the same from her time previously, she noticed a big shift in the management and the time the team had together.
"It’s really professional now.
"For the last few months we’ve been able to have rugby fulltime. It just sort of gives us a chance to be better as individual athletes, then as a team as well, just because we’ve had so much more time together."
That level of professionalism was important not just for athletes, but for the future of women’s rugby in New Zealand, she said.
"It’s been really crucial that they’ve given out these Super contracts and given us more time to train and get better as individuals.
"From the Black Ferns point of view, the Super competition makes rugby better in New Zealand, which helps improve the Black Ferns and helps them do better on the world stage as well."
Matatu have started their Super Rugby Aupiki defence with two losses and McGoverne said they were "obviously gutted".
But morale among the group remains high heading into tomorrow’s clash with the unbeaten Chiefs Manawa.
"We just know that we’ve not reached out potential at all, which is actually exciting for us, because we know when we hit our straps we can beat any team on our day.
"Going into the Chiefs this week, we’ll quite happily take the underdog status.
"We’re just really excited to actually show what we’ve got."
