\n Gippsland Power, Vic Country, Carlton: 10 years on, Harry McKay and Ben Ainsworth are once again teammates.\n <\/p>\n
\n By Cristian Filippo, Carlton Media\n <\/p>\n
IT WAS a message from Jacob Weitering which broke the news to Harry McKay.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was \u2018Weiters\u2019 who texted me saying \u2018how good that we got Benny Ainsworth\u2019\u2026 I had to look at my phone and see what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caught slightly unawares by the news, McKay was nonetheless delighted that Ainsworth indeed did make his way to IKON Park, as former teammates from Gippsland Power and Vic Country in 2015.<\/p>\n
In fairness to big Harry, he wasn\u2019t the only one surprised by the speed of the deal. Ainsworth\u2019s commitment to Carlton and the subsequent three-way trade involving Gold Coast and Port Adelaide seemed to catch some in the footy world off-guard – a rarity in trade period nowadays.<\/p>\n
Originally from Warragul, McKay was pumped that the Morwell product would be joining him in Navy Blue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pumped, I think he\u2019s a perfect acquisition for us and he\u2019ll had a lot of value. I can\u2019t wait to play with him in the forward line, he\u2019s been a very consistent player for Gold Coast.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny time you can bring quality people in and quality footballers, it\u2019s a great thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2015, McKay and Ainsworth played a lot of footy together. In his bottom-age year, Ainsworth won the Gippsland Power best and fairest as McKay produced a form line which ultimately saw him taken at pick No.10 in the draft.<\/p>\n
They were also mainstays in the forward line for Vic Country which went onto win the National Carnival.<\/p>\n
While Ainsworth was part of the talent league and rep teams from the outset according to McKay, the big man underwent a different trajectory, playing local football for Warragul up until 2014 – where a pre-season with the Power set the wheels in motion for the two to be reunited in Navy Blue a decade later.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you play with someone, especially in under-18s, you always have a good connection when you see them after a game. I always watched from afar and enjoyed Benny go about his work.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuper consistent, he\u2019s barely missed a game in nine year, really skilful and strong in the contest. I remember when we were playing under-18s, he could\u2019ve been a key forward the way he competed overhead.<\/p>\n
\u201cA natural footballer that works really hard, has great footy nous – it was good fun playing with him back in the day, I can\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Ben and Harry\u2019?<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026 I\u2019m not sure that\u2019ll stick.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gippsland Power, Vic Country, Carlton: 10 years on, Harry McKay and Ben Ainsworth are once again teammates. By…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-208109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}