CARLTON officials had felt elation and relief in equal measure when Harry McKay's management approached the club in late September last year, keen for the star goalkicker to forego his free agency rights and sign long-term. For the player himself, though, all he wanted was a different feeling in 12 months' time.

Forget about the joy of penning a seven-year contract extension, McKay wanted to finally taste finals football. A foundation member of the club's much vaunted list rebuild that began in 2015, the former Coleman Medal winner was still processing the stunning late-season collapse that culminated in the now-infamous final-day defeat to Collingwood as the ink on his contract dried.

On Friday night, he'll finally realise that ambition as the Blues host Sydney in an elimination final played in front of a sold-out MCG crowd that will be baying for a decade's worth of disappointment to be snapped on a single evening. For McKay, who has experienced much of that pain himself, he has had to travel a path tinged with rewarding satisfaction and immense frustration to eventually get there.

"You definitely build your resilience through those tough times," McKay tells AFL.com.au.

"A lot of us have been together for eight or nine years now and have been through a lot of them. We always talk about when it turns, and it eventually will, it will feel that much better because we went through it.

"I'm really proud of a lot of those key guys, firstly for sticking together. Throughout those eight years, it would have been easy to look elsewhere because things weren't going amazingly. I'm proud of that. But also the ability, specifically this year, to turn it around through some adversity. It makes the group better. You want to protect what we've got now, because of the hard times we've had."

McKay's eight seasons at Ikon Park have had their challenges. His last year, though, has been unlike most. The terms of his new seven-year deal don't even kick in for another few months, and yet the 204cm spearhead had lived highs and lows since it was signed that some wouldn't experience in an entire career.

There have been goals, misses, a host of prominent voices calling for him to be traded, questions around his partnership with Charlie Curnow, injury scares and more. Then there was the bitter disappointment of a six-match losing streak, instantly followed by the remarkable elation of a nine-match winning run.

Even if his contract call led to elements of that wild ride, the 25-year-old wouldn't have changed much. Having witnessed first-hand the speculation and scrutiny that has followed his twin brother Ben at North Melbourne this season, McKay knows he made the right call to sign at Ikon Park when he did.

"It was always going to be Carlton," McKay says.

"There was never any thought otherwise. But, obviously, the nature of the industry is that coming into your free agency year there will always be clubs that ask questions and your manager does their job in terms of fielding those questions. So, as soon as last season was done, I spoke to my manager and wanted as little fuss as possible with it.

"You see what it does, even with what my brother is going through at the moment. The distraction and the outside noise that it creates. I knew where I wanted to play my footy, so I wanted to get it done as quickly as possible to help the club and limit the noise."

McKay's decision didn't silence the noise for long, though. If anything, the security he thought the long-term deal would provide was twisted into a way to amplify the club's struggles throughout a bleak winless run midway through the season.

Curnow's form, combined with McKay's ongoing struggles in front of goal, led to growing calls for Carlton to take drastic list action to reverse its fortunes. Brisbane's triple-premiership champion Jonathan Brown said the club should be actively looking to trade the 2021 Coleman Medal winner to Sydney, while former Melbourne captain Garry Lyon suggested the Blues had a "rooster problem" in their attack.

"Every week it was something else," McKay says. "I can't play with Charlie, Charlie is better without me, trade me. I don't know if I did something wrong to the media over the off-season. Maybe they didn't like that I started a podcast."

However, McKay acknowledges that his ongoing goalkicking woes contributed to the criticism. As the misses stacked up, the losses continued and the public debate over his preference to snap set-shots around the body raged on, his own trust in a practiced technique eroded. Mental demons emerged and steadily grew louder.

"There's no doubt it was tough," McKay says.

"When you're not getting the results you want, it makes it tough. When you have a routine or a belief that you want to back in, but that's not coming with results, it's hard to fully commit to it and be confident in it.

"For me, when you're talking in-season, it's more of a mental challenge than anything else. You're not going to be able to change too much technically week-to-week because you simply haven't got time. As much as everyone says, 'don't worry about it' or 'don't listen to it', when it's in your face 24/7 it's going to play on your mind. It was a very individual criticism."

McKay wants to explain himself, though. Yes, the goalkicking was off. But hardly ever across a 105-game Carlton career has the club's long-limbed forward felt more comfortable or confident in his own form. It was a sense of assuredness that he took with him throughout the season's low points, and one that's reflected in the numbers.

This year, McKay ranks second among all forwards for marks, behind only his teammate Curnow. Meanwhile, according to Champion Data, he also rates 'elite' among all key forwards for marks (6.8 per game) and contested marks (2.1), while rating 'above average' for disposals (11.9), forward-50 marks (2.6) and score involvements (5.2).

The data is good, even before you factor in the role change he has juggled to accommodate for Curnow's superstardom. Back in 2021, when McKay won the Coleman Medal when Curnow was sidelined by injury, Champion Data notes he won 67 per cent of his disposals in the forward 50 and 33 per cent everywhere else. This year, with Curnow deeper, McKay has claimed 45 per cent of his disposals in the forward 50 and 55 per cent everywhere else, after putting an emphasis on pushing higher up the ground to aid his teammate.

"My inability to finish my work was glaringly off," McKay says.

"It makes all of the other stuff you're doing not as important. In my role, there's a lot of factors that make up that role. We're very obsessed on one element of it, which is goalkicking. I completely get that, because at the end of the day it's what you're going to get measured on as a forward.

"But there were definitely other elements of the role where I felt like I was in career-best form. Because there was such a glaring deficiency in my goalkicking, though, the goalkicking took up a lot of the thinking."

It didn't just take up McKay's thinking, either. It became a running theme that defined the side's dismal stretch, which Voss, forward line coach Ash Hansen, captain Patrick Cripps and the club's entire football department had to answer for. That, more than anything, irked the Blues' talismanic forward.

"I was conscious of not reading or listening to anything," McKay says.

"It always comes back to you, though, one way or another. Whether it's your mum or someone on the street coming up to you and saying, 'What do you think about this that's been said about you?'

"I understand that it's part of the AFL industry, the media talking. Being at a big club and a player within that, you're always going to be open to criticism when an area of your game is off. What annoyed me was 'Vossy' had to answer questions about it every week, people would message Ash Hansen, my parents would cop a bit.

"As much as I can understand that we're in an industry where your performances can get critiqued, at the end of the day it was something that I had to work on. It didn't have anything to do with 'Vossy' or Ash or my parents or my family. But they had to answer for it, when really it was my issue."

McKay and Carlton have since climbed out of the doldrums. After losing six consecutive matches and falling into the AFL's bottom four at the halfway point of the campaign, the Blues then won nine straight games to catapult themselves into the finals for the first time in a decade.

The spark for that scintillating run was lit in a single quarter on a sunny afternoon against Gold Coast at the MCG back in mid-June. Having trailed by 10 points at the first break, McKay then kicked the first of nine unanswered goals in the second term to lay the platform for an emphatic 59-point victory. Carlton hasn't looked back since.

"That Gold Coast game was a real turning point," McKay says.

"Obviously, it was the start of a long run of wins. But the way we played, we got that powerful brand back within a quarter. You'd be lying if you said you predicted nine in a row and that we'd finish with a home final, but there was always a belief that we could get it rolling."

McKay played a key on-field role in the turnaround, kicking eight goals from the next three matches. But he was just as influential away from the field. Not officially recognised in Carlton's three-person leadership group this season, he remains part of a group of 10 to 12 Blues players involved in the club's routine leaders' meetings. It was here where some challenging conversations took place to inspire the team's mid-season revival.

"We want to grow that leadership density around the club," McKay says.

"As much as it's great for culture and everything there, on-field leadership is really important. The more guys that are really knowledgeable and really thrive in that space, the more we'll improve. There's been a big emphasis over the last two years, to grow that leadership density. It's been really enjoyable to be part of that, growing that aspect of my game."

Typically, McKay's rollercoaster season wouldn't be stopped by the sudden shift in momentum. As Carlton dispatched of the high-flying Port Adelaide back in July, an awkward landing and a painful twist of the knee had the club's key forward fearing the worst.

Despite a couple of sleepless nights as he awaited scan results, McKay was cleared of ligament damage. However, still forced to undergo an arthroscope to repair the injury, the chances of a return ahead of finals remained up in the air. Initially expected to miss two months, he was back within five weeks and even returned for the home and away season's final fortnight to blow out any lingering cobwebs before September.

"I wasn't thinking ACL at all, not one part of me. But the doctor was assessing it on the bench and he said, 'I think we can potentially rule out ACL'. As soon as he said 'ACL', I was really scared for a bit," McKay says.

"Sam Docherty, who has done a couple of ACLs and his meniscus as well, said it was the exact same feeling except you hear a pop with an ACL. I was questioning myself, 'Did I hear a pop?' I was so relieved it was only a minor injury."

It now looms as a defining finals maiden series for players like McKay, Curnow and Jacob Weitering, who were among those drafted to the club eight years ago as it started its lengthy journey back to the top. He has attended these types of fixtures in the past, but never played in one. Acutely aware of how reputations are created on the biggest stages, he wants to be the one who performs.

"No matter how many years you've had in the game, or your status in the game, there's always that kid in you that loves finals footy. The grass smells a bit better, the weather's a bit warmer, and there's such a buzz in the city," McKay says.

"I can feel that coming. It's nice to be on this side of it. As a footy fan, I've always loved watching finals and I've always loved watching legacies get created in finals. As much as the 24-round home and aways season is really important, the great players and great teams stand up in finals. As a group, we're really excited to attack that and see if our brand and the way we want to play can stand up in those big games."

Progressing beyond Sydney on Friday night, and potentially challenging for a premiership after that, would be a fitting way to cap a whirlwind 12 months for McKay. Given everything that's happened in this last year, who knows what the next seven hold.

"I haven't even started the deal yet," he laughs.

"But, no, I'm really excited about the next seven years here."