Saturday 1 June 2019, Gold Coast v GWS at Engie Stadium. Four minutes into the game Jack Martin wins a free kick 65m from goal at half forward. He kicks long towards the pocket and a young Ben King backs into GWS co-captain Phil Davis and pulls down a powerful mark. And from 25m on a tough ankle he converts.

It was a moment King, then 18 and in his third AFL game, will never forget. His first AFL goal.

Six years and 22 days on, King will return to the Showgrounds on Sunday for the 20^th meeting between the league’s youngest clubs. It’s for the unofficial ‘Expansion Cup’.

And while the simple ‘win or lose’ question will always be paramount, King’s standing in the competition is part of a hot talking point across the AFL after a big Round 14 for marking forwards.

As King and his SUNS teammates enjoyed a weekend off, Port Adelaide’s Mitch Georgiades kicked seven goals, GWS pair Jesse Hogan and Aaron Cadman six and five, Geelong’s Jeremy Cameron kicked six and Brisbane’s Logan Morris five.

It was enough to prompt endless debate in the Melbourne media about who are the A-Grade key forwards in the competition? And for SUNS fans, where does King rank?

It’s a subjective question invariably swayed by club allegiances, but the numbers show significantly the output of the SUNS spearhead, who has topped the club goal kicking four times in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024, and has kicked at least one goal in his last 17 games and in 31 of his last 32.

Since Round 11, 2019, when King kicked his first goal, he’s bagged 217 goals in 105 games at 2.07 goals per game. He’s kicked 217.114 at a 65.6% conversion rate. And he’s got himself on the goal sheet in 82.9% of games.

For the sake of comparison, we’ve looked at the comparative statistics over this period for 30 marking forwards across the competition, including at least one from each club.

King ranks #8 for goals in that time behind only Cameron (332), Adelaide’s Taylor Walker (262), North Melbourne’s Nick Larkey (256), Melbourne’s Bailey Fritsch (248), Carlton’s Charlie Curnow (243), Western Bulldogs’ Aaron Naughton (230) and Hogan (229). And that is despite missing the entire 2022 season with a knee reconstruction.

More relevant is the goals per game average in which King ranks #6 behind only Curnow (2.73gpg), Cameron (2.48), Hogan (2.39), Walker (2.30) and Richmond’s Tom Lynch (2.24).

More so, the ages of the five players ahead of him. They are 28, 32, 30, 35 and 32, while King is 24.

The SUNS spearhead ranks #11 of the 30 players for goal kicking accuracy, headed by Larkey at 73.99%, and 12^th for games on the goalsheet, topped by Curnow at 93.3%.

So while this week all the media rage has been about 21-year-old Cadman and 20-year-old Morris, the numbers say Senior Coach Damien Hardwick will be more than happy to have the big #34 in his side moving forward.

And the 30 players who made up the comparison? In club order, they were Walker, Darcy Fogarty, Riley Thilthorpe (Adel), Morris, Eric Hipwood (Bris), Curnow, Harry McKay (Carl), Brody Mihocek, Jamie Elliott (Coll), Peter Wright (Ess), Josh Treacy, Jye Amiss (Frem), Cameron (Geel), Hogan, Cadman (GWS), Mabior Chol, Jack Gunston, Mitch Lewis (Haw), Bailey Fritsch (Melb), Larkey, Jack Darling (North), Georgiades (Port), Lynch (Rich), Max King (StK), Hayden McLean (Syd), Naughton (WB), Oscar Allen and Jake Waterman (WC).

Yes, Fritsch is not really a marking forward, but he’s the closest Melbourne have. Yes, Elliott is only 178cm tall, but he plays much taller. And yes, Gunston is more a roaming forward, but “top 29” doesn’t quite cut it like “top 30” does.

And what about the Bulldogs’ Sam Darcy, you might ask? He’s only played 35 games. But to answer the inevitable questions, he’s kicked 58.37 at 1.57 per game, with a 61.1% conversion. And he’s been on the goalsheet 80% of the time.

King will go back to Engie Stadium on Sunday for an expansion ‘derby’ which has a whole new feel about it. For the first time both clubs are in the top eight on the AFL ladder. The SUNS (with two games in hand) are 6^th and the Giants are 7^th.

Coming off consecutive losses to Fremantle by 11 points at home and Geelong by 24 points away prior to the bye, and up against a Giants side that upset Brisbane by 11 points at the Gabba last week, the SUNS will be looking to improve a poor overall record against the club which followed them into the AFL in 2012.

The SUNS, on a mission this year to wipe a host of black spots from club record books, are 5-14 overall against the Giants, having won four in a row from 2012-14 and once by a point in Ballarat in 2021 in the last 14 since. They have never won at the Showgrounds, going down there five times to GWS and once to Melbourne during the 2020 Covid season.

The entire SUNS playing list has a combined 5-83 record at the venue. Daniel Rioli had two wins there with Richmond, Ben Long one with St Kilda, Jarrod Witts one with Collingwood and Tom Berry one with Brisbane.

Lachie Weller, set to return from injury to play his 150^th AFL game on Sunday, is 0-7 at the Showgrounds, having played there twice for Fremantle and five times for Gold Coast, while David Swallow and Alex Sexton are 0-6, and Touk Miller, Nick Holman and Charlie Ballard 0-5. Leo Lombard and Ethan Readhave never played there.

But there have been some special moments for the club at the Showgrounds - Jarrod Harbrow played his 250^th there, Nick Malceski his 200^th, Wil Powell his 100^th, and Brayden Fiorini his 50^th. And Izak Rankine debuted there, kicking an equal club record three goals and polling one vote in the Brownlow.

Sam Flanders had a career-high 43 possessions at the GWS home last year and polled two Brownlow votes – the club’s only other votes at the GWS home.

Aaron Hall’s 32 possessions in the SUNS’ first visit to the Showgrounds in 2016 is the only other 30-possession game, while five other players kicked three goals there – Brandon Matera, Jarrod Grant (2016), Jack Martin (2017), Levi Casboult and Mabior Chol (2022).

Tom Mitchell’s 50-possession game for Hawthorn against GWS in 2018 is the ground record, from Patrick Dangerfield’s 45 for Geelong in 2017, Flanders’ 43 and Josh Kelly’s 43 for GWS in 2017.

Richmond’s Jack Riewoldt holds the ground goal-kicking record at 11, set in 2014, while Adelaide’s Tom Lynch kicked 10 in 2013, and the Jesse Hogan has twice kicked nine.

GWS’ Lachie Whitfield will play his 87^th game at the Showground on Sunday to claim the outright games record, going one ahead of ex-captain Callan Ward, who suffered a season-ending (and possibly career-ending) knee injury in his 86^th game in Round 12.

FLASHBACK
Round 11, 2019 also has fond memories for SUNS’ AFLW Head Coach Rhyce Shaw, but not so for Damien Hardwick. On the Friday night, the day before King’s first goal, Shaw coached North Melbourne for the first time, recording a 37-point win over Hardwick’s Richmond.