AFL 2020: Max and Ben King set to play each other for the first time
Ben and Max King’s mum thought she was doing the right thing when she sent a care package up to the twins. But there was one problem the rising Suns star pointed out very quickly - and it’s set the scene for the boys’ first battle on an AFL field.
AFL News
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Marni King sealed up two care packages and put them in the post last month.
Inside were card games including Uno flip, Sudoku puzzles, blocks of chocolate and pairs of socks from Trent and Brooke Cotchin’s company, with messages such as ‘Don’t be perfect, be real’ stitched on.
“I told Ben and he said, ‘Oh my god! I’ve been away for two years and you’ve never sent a care package, Max goes away for three weeks and you send him a care package!” mum Marni said yesterday.
“They’ll probably never play the games, but I just wanted to send something. Maybe they’ll get off their phones and do something else.”
Watch Footy LIVE & On-Demand Every Day from July 29 - August 17 with Kayo. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >
On Thursday night at Metricon Stadium the twin brothers and best mates will play a game against each other, an AFL game. It will be the first time, at any level, they have ever gone head-to-head on a football field.
Watching from home in Hampton will be Marni, husband Brook and their dog Poppy.
It’s an unusually quiet household these days because Ben relocated to Gold Coast in 2018 and Max is suddenly living in Noosa with St Kilda in the hub.
“The one relief I do have is they aren’t actually playing on each other – they’re at separate ends of the ground,” Mrs King said.
“That’s a good thing, because I don’t think either would hold back.
“Each time I see them out there I go, ‘Is that for real? Is that my son out there doing that?’”
Marni was secretly happy that Jarryd Roughead beat Max in a goalkicking competition at Saints training recently, because it meant her son had to shave his head.
“It was out of control,” she said.
“He swore he was never going to shave his head again, so he was pretty flat.”
Perhaps Roughead should challenge Ben next.
The Gold Coast spearhead is a safer set-shot because his run up and ball drop is a touch cleaner and he knows his routine well.
Ben’s teammates Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson will remember the day Max led Haileybury to a premiership with 5.0 against Carey.
But Max couldn’t buy a goal in the warm-up and can get hit with the yips.
Mrs King said the twins even had similar goal celebrations — “a similar celebratory scream and fist clench” — and the AFL world is still struggling to split them.
But there are subtle differences in the way they play. Ben is also the more explosive of the two.
Remember in Round 5, when he booted three goals in 12 minutes on Geelong’s Mark Blicavs and turned the dual best-and-fairest winner inside out?
Essendon goalkicking legend Matthew Lloyd coached both Kings at Haileybury and has marvelled at the separation Ben gets on defenders.
But Max – this year’s Rising Star fancy – has only played nine AFL games (14 goals), compared to Ben’s 23 games (30 goals), due to a knee reconstruction in his draft year.
For long bombs Lloyd said Max was the man because he was such a strong contested mark.
Born one minute earlier, Max – captain at Haileybury and drafted two picks before Ben – is a dominant man with a mean streak.
Remember that towering grab he took opposed to Jacob Weitering in Round 5, where he showed off his shaved head?
The 202cm athlete launched off the ground and gobbled the Sherrin with outstretched arms, marking the ball about 3.2m above the grass.
Weitering – and all key defenders – have to play in front, or at least level with the King twins, according to champion full-back Dale Morris.
“You cannot let them have a run and jump at the footy,” Morris said.
“With their reach if they can run and jump and fully extend their arms there’s not many defenders that will be able to stop them.
“You’ll end up giving away a free kick trying to spoil the ball, chopping the arms, holding them or whatever.
“It’s all about body positioning. If there isn’t pressure on the kick you have to put some body contact on them to not let them leave the ground.”
But from what Lloyd has seen … good luck, defenders.
“Their timing of leads is as good as I’ve ever seen from young players,” Lloyd said.
“In terms of understanding not to take their space too early and reading the cues of the kicker up the field.
“They’ve both known how to do that since they were in Year 10.”
Both boys are contracted at their clubs until 2022.
But Saints fans have been dreaming of Ben joining Max since draft night and it would only be natural for Gold Coast to share the same fantasy of uniting the brothers at Metricon Stadium.
Would it even work at AFL level?
After all, Sandringham Dragons put Max in the goalsquare and made Ben play in defence because they didn’t think there was room for both in the forward line.
But Lloyd was happy to team them up in a monster Haileybury attack as Year 11 boys and he has no doubt they could coexist again in an AFL forward line.
One would roll high up the ground and the other would stay deep and it was devastating.
“When they played together they had an amazing ability to never get in each other’s way,” Lloyd said.
MORE AFL NEWS
Midweek Tackle: Mark Robinson’s likes and dislikes from Round 10 of the AFL season
AFL teams for Round 10: All the ins and outs
Geelong president Colin Carter flags concerns about 2021 finances
“A bit like the Krakouer brothers they had a great sense for each other and complemented each other.
“I can hardly remember them ever flying together. They were unbelievable at staying out of each other’s way.”
But for two hours on Thursday night at least they will be enemies, and Marni said she might pull out the half St Kilda, half Gold Coast jumper that was stitched together by her husband’s colleague.
“Every game I have so much trepidation and excitement and everything rolled into one,” she said.
“I’m hoping for two bags. I guess the hardest part is someone’s going to come away disappointed.
“But that builds resilience, doesn’t it?”
Originally published as AFL 2020: Max and Ben King set to play each other for the first time