{"id":818795,"date":"2026-07-23T13:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818795\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T13:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:38:15","slug":"afl-news-carlton-blues-vs-david-king-over-harry-mckay-injury-commentary-comments-coach-john-fraser-weighs-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818795\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news, Carlton Blues vs David King over Harry McKay injury commentary comments, coach John Fraser weighs in"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interim Carlton<\/a> coach Josh Fraser has defended key forward Harry McKay amid the club\u2019s stoush with high-profile AFL<\/a> commentator David King.<\/p>\n

King drew the ire of the Blues while commentating their loss to Collingwood<\/a> on Saturday night, during which McKay was injured<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

David King pictured doing sideline commentary for Fox Footy.\u00a0nna\\cdesilva<\/p>\n

The 54-year-old North Melbourne legend appeared to question McKay\u2019s resilience as the player hobbled off the MCG<\/a> with a knee injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks to me like the docs are saying it\u2019s a pain management issue,\u201d King said on Fox Footy.<\/p>\n

\u201c(They are saying) \u2018We know you\u2019re under difficulty and there is some discomfort there, but this is AFL footy, we need you out there\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

When McKay was ruled out for the remainder of the game, King continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooks like he\u2019s put a line through himself, putting the jacket on, that\u2019s it, night over. Incredible disappointment. You wonder whether there\u2019s any structural issue there or is it just a pain tolerance discussion?\u201d he queried.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Harry McKay discussion will rage. There\u2019s nothing worse than when a player of that significance is not there. It changes the whole game.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy old coaches would say: \u2018I hope that\u2019s a two or three-week [injury]. If that\u2019s a 15-20 minute [injury], you lose a lot of respect\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, King went on his SEN radio show and revealed he received a phone call from Carlton hierarchy following the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took the call from Carlton [on Sunday] \u2026 and had a lot of [public] feedback about it. Look, my thoughts are my thoughts. I am not necessarily going to back over it too much,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have spoken about players that go off a little bit easy in the past. I am not saying that\u2019s Harry on this occasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, he has got an issue, and they are telling me he will miss two weeks. I was basically referring to an old (former Kangaroos coach) Denis Paganism which you will know if you listened to what I said earlier.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Harry McKay of the Blues is seen with medical staff.\u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cAll good. They [Blues] disagree with what the discussion was about, which is fine. That\u2019s footy. I am happy to move on from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKay, 28, has torn the meniscus in his knee and will miss Saturday\u2019s clash with Gold Coast, and likely at least one more game after that.<\/p>\n

Fraser fronted media on Thursday and said he hadn\u2019t spent much time analysing King\u2019s commentary, but was standing by his player.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever there\u2019s an injury, your mindset goes to the care and support for the player,\u201d Fraser said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe act on the information we\u2019re given from our medical team. The commentary around all of that, I probably push it to the side.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can only judge him on the way he\u2019s presented, and he\u2019s presented his usual self. Great energy around the group, trying as hard as he can to play and leading internally around the club.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blues sit 12th on the ladder and are one of several teams fighting for a spot in the AFL\u2019s new wildcard round before finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Interim Carlton coach Josh Fraser has defended key forward Harry McKay amid the club\u2019s stoush with high-profile AFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-818795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818795","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=818795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}