Family came first on an autumn afternoon in Melbourne’s outer west when Ben and Harry McKay played on each other in a senior football game for the first time.
It was April 2018, and the mirror image twins, Harry is left-handed and kicks with his left foot, Ben his right, were in their third year at Carlton and North Melbourne respectively after being selected in the 2015 AFL draft.
The club’s VFL teams were playing at Werribee’s Avalon Airport Oval with Ben, in a new move to defence, matched up on his younger-by-one-minute brother.
Individual and team rivalries were put aside late in the first quarter.
“We’ve both worn contact lenses since Year 7 and normally pack a spare in case they come out during a game,” Ben, enjoying a standout first season with new club Essendon, tells ESPN.
“Jed Lamb, who we both know well, and Harry were getting into me a little bit and Jed knocked me over and my contact came out and it dawned on me that I hadn’t packed a spare.
“As the ball was being bounced, I asked Harry as the game was happening: ‘Have you got a spare pair of contacts? Is there any chance you can lend me one?’
“The siren went at quarter time and we both ran off to Harry’s change rooms and he was kind enough to give me his spare. It was the most bizarre thing and I do owe him one for that, he saved me big time.”
The 26-year-olds have shared contact lenses, a womb, a birthday, and now on Sunday night after a nine-season wait finally an AFL field for the first time when the Bombers and Blues meet in a King’s Birthday Eve blockbuster.
“We’ve got to get through training first, if there was ever a week to be cautious it might be this week,” Harry told media on Monday.
“I was watching the last couple of minutes of Ben’s game (against the Gold Coast last Sunday) and just had my fingers crossed nothing happened.
“It does feel a bit surreal but maybe it was waiting for a big occasion like this, two big clubs and two big rivals which will be amazing.”
The Carlton spearhead and 2021 Coleman Medallist is understandably cautious.
In 2016, the McKay’s played against, but not on, each other in the VFL.
They both made their AFL debuts in 2017 but weren’t in the senior team when the Roos played the Blues that year or the next.
Then began what felt like a curse.
In 2019, Harry took on North Melbourne but Ben wasn’t selected. In 2020 and 2021, Ben played but Harry was injured, a late withdrawal on the day and game day eve, in both years.
Ben says 2022 was the anomaly and when it really felt like they were never destined to meet at AFL level.
“I’d never been suspended in any sport I’d ever played and I happened to get a week (for an incident) against Geelong and missed the Carlton game. That was the stage where I thought the universe doesn’t want us to play against each other,” he explains.
“I messaged Harry and said before anyone knows, before the media get it, I’ve been suspended for a week and he replied ‘No you’re not, you’re lying and just stirring me up’.
“We both agreed at that stage it was like something above us was stopping the battle happen.”
The second and third of four children, book ended by older sister Hannah and younger brother Charlie, were always at each other around the house, and in the backyard of, their Warragul home in Gippsland.
“When we were growing up, and still to this day, we very were competitive, there were plenty of fights, probably too many,” Ben recalls.
“We probably look back on our childhood and take it for granted how good it was to have someone with the exact same interest to play footy and cricket with. I certainly cherish those times.
“Even now when we’re at mum and dad’s house for dinner and we play Monopoly it gets very, very competitive and I don’t think that will ever change.
“I feel like I’m the more mature one, I don’t need to have the final say or the last laugh but Harry does, he always has to have the last word. The family probably don’t catch on to it but I certainly do.
“I’m happy just to leave things but Harry always has to push me or niggle me, I would definitely call him an agitator.”
Harry adds: “It was always us against each other in any form of sport in the backyard and at school and at pretty much anything you can think of so that competition is pretty familiar for us.”
Last year, the McKay’s teamed up for the Ben and Harry Podcast and it’s forced them to be on their best behaviour according to Ben.
“Our first ever episode was just Harry and I, we didn’t have our host Will, and it was literally half an hour of us arguing and the poor producer outside the studio was thinking ‘oh no, what have I done? I don’t think this podcast has any legs’,” he says.
“It’s very tempting to argue 24/7 but we’ve had to learn to reign it in a little bit, hear each other out and control ourselves in certain settings which has been good for both of us.
“I think it (the podcast) has probably bought our relationship closer together in some ways which is nice.”
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Understanding the ups and downs of professional sport and each other means Ben has a constant source of support in Harry and Harry in Ben.
When they moved to the big smoke nine years ago to begin their careers they lived with host families, a two-minute drive separated them.
“In our first year or two we did everything together and when you go through these new experiences in the AFL system for the first time, we were really involved on a daily basis but as you get older you create your own networks and aren’t as reliant on each other every day,” Ben says.
“It is nice to have someone who thinks like you and has a lot of the same traits and we know each other is there if we ever need it.
“We both want to get the best out of ourselves and be the best people and players we can be, I know we take the mickey out of each other a bit but I’m proud of Harry and what he’s done through his career.
“We are brothers and we love each other no matter what, we’re stuck with each other for the rest of our lives.”