Banter, bruises, blood noses, and the time Ben stabbed Harry at the dinner table

Or, as Peter put it: “Harry come out looking like a Buddha, and Ben come out looking like he needed a good feed. He was about six weeks behind.”

Said Tracey: “Competition started in the womb, absolutely. Harry won that one.”

There is a sense of calm among Ben and Harry’s parents when they spoke to this masthead on Tuesday morning at an East Melbourne café. This is a week like no other for the experienced football parents, who have waited nine years for their sons to play each other.

Twins on opposing teams are not commonplace, though, as fate would have it, Ben and Max King also faced off this weekend. It’s even rarer for them to play on each other, as key forward Harry and key defender Ben will at some point on Sunday night.

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Theirs is a match-up delayed by form, injuries and suspension. Twice, in the COVID years of 2020-21, they got as far as being named in their side’s respective 22s, only for Harry to be a late withdrawal. One year, the parents found out on the midday news. Another time, Ben ran onto the field expecting to see Harry.

“He had to ask Crippa [Patrick Cripps], ‘Where’s Harry?’,” Peter said. “Crippa told him, ‘No, he’s not coming out, big fella, he’s hurt his toe, missed again’.”

Tracey is glad she can be at the ground to see them finally play. Peter, less so.

“I wish this had happened in year two, and it wouldn’t have been a thing,” Peter said, referring to the intense media build-up.

The silver lining of a belated match-up is both now have the maturity to deal with the occasion. Their relationship is closer, their parents note, and they have established themselves as fine players in their own right. They are on a podcast together. Their next episode will be recorded on Monday, less than 24 hours after battle. There will not be much time to dwell.

As close as they are, the pair argue over practically anything. Always have. Harry is the antagonist, their parents say. Ben is patient – to a point.

“Harry’s still got scars from Ben stabbing him with a steak knife because Harry’s tried to get a bit of pie off his plate,” Tracey said.

Harry had a constant blood nose for about 10 years, Peter said. It may have been due more to fragile capillaries, though the brothers’ “general roughhouse tactics” would not have helped.

“They’d go into a blur when they get animated, and it wouldn’t matter what window or door was there,” Peter said. “When they see red, they see red. And they’re generally not like that.”

Listening to his sons’ podcast is “triggering” for Peter.

“They sit there arguing the whole time,” Peter said wryly.

Tracey added: “Like they’re at the dining room table.”

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When the boys come over for dinner, their parents say, there is about a 15-minute window when they are civil until the niggling starts. It’s never about anything serious. Usually, it’s Harry baiting Ben. Sometimes, Ben bites.

“I feel sorry for Ben’s girlfriend Taylah,” Peter said. “She’s had to put up with this for a decade. She sees them at their worst. If I’m there, I go, ‘Hey, pull your head in’. She doesn’t feel like she can do that. She has to absorb that.”

Understandably, Tracey has trepidation one will do something silly. This time, the stage is bigger than the front paddock of their childhood home in Warragul, and the consequences a touch more serious than a telling off from mum and dad.

“They’re almost going to go into brother mode, rather than player mode,” Tracey said. “I just worry they’ll end up getting reported.”

But Tracey is confident that if one was sitting under a high ball, the other would look after him, as the Madden brothers (Simon and Justin) did back in their day.

“I heard or read one of them say the one thing I’m sure of is there won’t be a dirty act,” Tracey said. “Because he’s my brother first, and I think that will be true for Ben and Harry.”

Even an amateur psychologist is aware of the emotional complexities twins face. Steve and Mark Waugh, Australian sport’s most famous twins, made a concerted effort to go down different paths when they started their state careers, sick of the constant comparisons that come from a childhood spent sleeping in the same room, playing in the same sports teams.

The McKays have a similar story. By high school, both boys wanted to be seen as separate people. Harry could cope with being called Ben, but Ben would take it personally if called Harry, his parents said.

In 2015, Ben left Gippsland Power in the then TAC Cup during the pre-season to play with Warragul. Leading into that year’s draft, he said he had been racked with self-doubt. Privately, there was a different reason.

“Using Gippsland Power as an example with 30-odd new teammates who have never played with them and are just guessing at what their name is, Ben found that very difficult to deal with,” Peter said.

“Ben pulled out because he couldn’t handle the comparison of Ben v Harry. It was a big issue at the time.”

Ben’s theory, his father said, was he could catch the eye of recruiters by playing senior football at Warragul. Seeing the holes in that strategy, his parents gently coaxed Ben to change his mind, fearful it would be a decision he would regret “just because you don’t want to be accidentally called Harry by a teammate or be compared”.

It took a chance meeting with former Essendon star turned player manager Scott Lucas while watching Harry play for Vic Country for Ben to revisit his decision.

“He said, ‘I’ll come down and watch you, and if I think you’re good enough we’ll take it from there’,” Tracey said.

“Scott Lucas came and watched Ben at Warragul and said, ‘You can be drafted to the AFL, but you’ve got to get back to Gippsland Power’. He made him ring the coach and take his medicine.”

The Power coach at the time, Leigh Brown, a premiership player for Collingwood, knew Ben had ability, having tracked him at Warragul. Players of 200 centimetres-plus who can mark, kick and run as well as him are hard to find.

“The way Harry played attracted attention for Ben, even at Warragul,” Brown said. “He was playing really good senior footy there. He was about to see if he could come back. I made the call to sit down with Ben and said, ‘If you want to come back in, the door’s open. If this is your dream, here’s your opportunity’.”

When former Carlton list boss Stephen Silvagni expressed interest in taking both boys, Ben was downcast. His parents are not convinced Ben would have pursued a league career if the Blues had drafted him.

North Melbourne beat Silvagni to Ben, taking him at 21, two spots ahead of Carlton’s next selection at 23, the Blues having already chosen Jacob Weitering, Harry and Charlie Curnow with their earlier picks.

“Ben would have retired at that point and not gone down to Carlton,” Peter said. “We’d gone down there to see Steve with Ben just in case that did happen, and Steve wanted to have a chat with him.

“We hardly got a word out of Ben the whole day. He was sulking in the car on the way home. ‘Don’t pick me, don’t pick me’. He was that adamant.”

As comfortable as the twins are now with their own identities, Carlton and Essendon supporters can give up on having Harry and Ben playing together. Both have long-term deals – Ben until the end of 2029, and Harry 2030 – and, more importantly, there remains no appetite to play together.

“It’s never been a burning desire for either of them,” Tracey said.

Sunday night will be a family reunion of sorts. Grandparents, aunties and cousins will watch the game from a corporate box, which Harry says he organised – a claim his parents can verify.

The McKays were an Essendon family, but allegiances swung evenly to their boys’ respective clubs after they were drafted. Maintaining neutrality will not be straightforward.

Ben’s partner Taylah’s family will be cheering for the red and black, of course. So too will Peter’s father, who he says is “not too good in mixed football company”.

“We normally only go to the footy with Taylah when we’re barracking for Ben,” Peter said. “She’s never seen us in a Carlton jumper or paraphernalia, so we’re a bit conscious of that.”

Then there’s the post-match rituals. The rooms at the MCG are next to each other so visiting both is easy enough, but whose rooms do they go to first? The winners or the losers? The McKays may be the only people in the 90,000-strong crowd happy with a draw.

“The boys have said we’ll go to the winner’s rooms,” Tracey said.

Said Peter: “And they both think they’ll win it.”

This time, Dad won’t have to pick the winner.

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