With his achilles mended after more than ten months of rehabilitation, King jogged onto the field midway through the opening term against the Demons.
The one-eyed crowd applauded, and any nerves the club’s chief ruckman had harboured, quickly turned into exhilaration.
“I was a bit toey, but more just excited, I think, just because I’ve been sitting on the boundary a fair bit. You watch the guys and it’s what you’ve wanted to do as a kid,” King said after the Cats 14-point defeat of Melbourne.
“I had no expectations on myself to really do anything, just to get through it and by just doing that I was rapt.”
In about 40 minutes on the ground, which he spent predominately at half-forward, King had ten touches and took two marks.
He expects it will be another month before he contests the majority of the centre bounces. But with Cameron Mooney in such good form and Ben Graham as a back-up in the ruck, the urgency is reduced.
“I didn’t plan to do any (ruck work) today, and I threw myself in there for a couple. It felt okay, I guess I haven’t done a lot of ruck work at training, I’ve been doing more skills work,” King said.
“But I’ll do that from now on during the week. Hopefully in a month’s time I’ll be able to do everything.”
Thompson said King’s performance had exceeded his expectations.
“He’s been a long time out of the game, he’s been waiting and he played like that. He played with a lot of enthusiasm. I know the players were really keen to have him play with them again. It’s great to have him back, and I hope he pulls up alright tomorrow,” he said.
“He played a bit better than I thought he would. All we really needed him to do was compete in the ruck and get some hit outs.”
