North, Dons or who? The free agent who’s up for grabs

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Essendon have a level of interest in Ben McKay, who fits that team’s obvious need for a mature key defender with the physical stature to play on key forwards like McKay’s brother at Carlton.

The Bombers cannot keep asking Jayden Laverde to play on 100-plus kilogram and 200-centimetre monsters, such as Tom Hawkins and Tom Lynch. At worst, McKay would provide relief, until the day – if it ever comes – when Zach Reid is fit and seasoned enough to become their premier tall defender.

Port Adelaide’s interest in McKay is more subdued. Port, like Essendon, have been asking an undersized defender – usually the game Trent McKenzie – to stand Hawkins, Lynch and company. The Power, though, would prefer Esava Ratugolea from the Cats. McKay, thus, is only a plan B or C.

Ben McKay: Big man in demand.Credit: Getty Images

It is harder to find a decent key back than an affordable plumber these days, and, to further that analogy, teams that don’t have an anchor tall defender invariably find themselves swimming in the stuff that plumbers navigate.

Melbourne broke new ground by paying top dollar – an aggregate of more than $1.5 million a year – and a hefty draft price for Jake Lever and Steven May in 2017-18. It was a bold move that won the Demons the 2021 premiership and created the possibility for another.

But May is an elite key back on all levels and Lever an exceptional interceptor. McKay, who has played 62 games over eight seasons, isn’t at the Lever level, much less May’s. He would be plugging a hole at his next club, not delivering the grail.

Still, he’s 202cm and 104kg, can take a mark and at one point last season, McKay’s intercept marking had developed to the point that he led the AFL in that category (4.1 per game).

He’s viewed as less attractive in the marketplace than the more versatile Harry Himmelberg, who plays as a second or third tall at either end, and probably Ratugolea and possibly Adelaide’s free agent Tom Doedee, whom the Brisbane Lions are eyeing, despite a knee reconstruction.

Sydney, who are desperately short on tall backs and iffy for key forwards, are keen on Himmelberg and have been linked to West Coast’s Tom Barrass, who has a long-term contract.

North Melbourne aren’t desperate to sign McKay, either, for the simple reason that, if everything fell into place and followed a best-case script, he shaped as North’s version of James Frawley leaving Melbourne for Hawthorn (2014).

Melbourne let Frawley leave as a free agent and, thanks to a generous AFL assessment of his contract, he earned the Demons a first-round compensation pick (three). And so, instead of just landing Petracca at pick No.2, Melbourne were gifted the double whammy of Petracca AND Angus Brayshaw. The Demons should be lighting a candle to Frawley, the AFL and to St Kilda for overlooking Petracca at pick one.

In the dream scenario for North, another club would offer McKay $800,000-plus a season as a restricted free agent. Obviously, they would decline to match the offer (as the rules permit) and he would earn North a first-round compo pick. On North’s current ladder position – unlikely to change by round 24 – McKay would fetch pick three.

The Kangas, in this pipe dream, would emerge with picks two and three, the same hand that enabled them to draft Harry Sheezel and George Wardlaw last November, with the key difference that they would have sacrificed McKay, rather than Jason Horne-Francis.

It sounds too good to be true.

Alternatively, if the offer from Essendon or another club is around the more feasible mark of $600,000-$650,000, North would have the option of a) accepting an end of first-round compo pick (19-20), or b) matching and forcing a trade.

The appeal of McKay to rival clubs, however, is that he won’t cost a draft pick, unless North decide to play hard ball. Another longshot for North is the Joe Daniher scenario, when the Lions paid Daniher enough to give the Bombers a first rounder and thus avoided a messy trade.

“It is harder to find a decent key back than an affordable plumber these days, and, to further that analogy, teams that don’t have an anchor tall defender invariably find themselves swimming in the stuff that plumbers navigate.”

The upshot is that North and some other clubs are hedging their bets on McKay, a reflection of his stature as a second-tier key defender. A role player, not a game-changer.

Another small subplot in the McKay scenario: No coach in the competition would have a better handle on McKay than Brad Scott, who coached Ben for the defender’s first four seasons.

Scott’s stint as a senior football executive at the AFL also means he has a good working knowledge of the relative worth of players, including the various free agents.

If Essendon go after Ben McKay, I suspect that the price will be right for the Bombers, which would be south of what North want.

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