Max King knee injury not holding back St Kilda faith in spearhead

As the Saints spearhead underwent another surgery on Thursday, the club remained firm behind Max King as his growing injury history revealed one positive.

St Kilda remains as confident as ever spearhead Max King has a long future in the game despite his latest knee surgery.

King underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee on Thursday, with the Saints confident it will find a way to ease continuing soreness that has lingered since an unfortunate knock in February.

Initial fears of serious ACL damage following the knock during the pre-season were allayed but King had spent the last two months feeling soreness when he upped his loads and St Kilda’s official timeline on his return lingered consistently around 1-3 weeks.

Max King had been on the track in recent weeks. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

Now the club has his return down as ‘TBC’.

With King fresh off the operating table on Thursday, the Saints were expected to wait to put together a timeline for his return, which could be a month.

The Saints have enjoyed a positive start to the season even without their leading target.

Although a different knee issue, Carlton goalkicker Charlie Curnow took effectively five weeks to return form his own minor operation in February and has slowly built up form since.

While King’s right knee has cost him five games so far this season, the longevity of his knees isn’t a pressing concern at Moorabbin.

This stint on the sidelines is the second time his right knee has forced him out since he had an ACL rupture in 2018, which cost him the first half of his maiden AFL season at St Kilda.

The only other setback was a two-game stint in the early rounds of last year after he copped a knock against GWS.

He missed the final eight games of last year with a left knee PCL injury.

In 2019, an ankle injury cost him the last 10 games of the year and it was a shoulder joint that set him back in the opening nine weeks of 2023.

King popped the shoulder again later that year and missed three games, with the club ruling him out for the season.

But after a meeting of his inner circle, he decided to push back reconstructive surgery and play through the pain in the final weeks of the year, helping his side into the finals.

King has played 83 games in his career and missed 46 through injury, as well as three when he was managed.

King had put together a huge pre-season. Picture: Mark Stewart

His 52 goals in 2022 showed his immense talent and his twin brother Ben has dealt with similar injury woes but currently ties in the lead for the Coleman Medal with 17 majors.

Fresh off signing a bumper six-year deal in October, King committed himself to new fitness highs and had the best pre-season of his career so far before the February knee setback.

The deal was one of the biggest in club history and the Saints still back in their key forward to be a fulcrum of a contending forward line.

“Next year is front of mind in everything I do at the moment. How I want to come back and how I want to perform. So I definitely feel really motivated,” King told this masthead in October.

Originally published as Max King knee injury not holding back St Kilda faith in spearhead