+ Family loyalty put to the test

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!” Marni said on Wednesday.

“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.”

On Thursday night at Metricon Stadium, twin brothers and best mates Ben and Max King will play a game against each other – an AFL game. It will be the first time, at any level, they have gone head-tohead on a football field.

Watching from home in Hampton will be their mum Marni, her 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.

“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, this year’s Rising Star fancy, 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.