It was understandable. His life had just changed dramatically.
One moment he’d been celebrating an AFL premiership with players he’d spent more than a decade with. The next, he was pulling on a completely foreign guernsey.
Some at Telstra Dome during AFL Trade Week late last year might have sensed this was just about as riled up – off the field – as King gets.
Upon arriving he bumped into Cats footy manager Neil Balme. The pair shook hands, spoke briefly, and then King, dressed in his new St Kilda polo shirt, was off to front the bright lights and cameras.
That can be tough for any player, let alone a former club captain, All-Australian and two-time best and fairest winner.
It was almost as if King had to do all he could to stop himself saying something he shouldn’t.
“I still think I can play and I’m pretty sure most of the boys down the club still thought I can play and, as I said, the decision’s been made for me,” King said at the time.
The man who arrived at Kardinia Park as a 16-year-old, while happy the Cats were able to prolong his career, didn’t seem overly thankful Geelong had spared him the uncertainty of the pre-season draft by trading him to the Saints for pick 90 – along with fellow former Cat Charlie Gardiner.
“I think after 13 years’ service and captaining the club it was probably the least they could do for me,” King said last October.
Geelong and St Kilda have only met once this year, that being back in round four when the Cats won by seven goals.
King was in the thick of it that day, pushing and shoving with the man whose place he took in last year’s AFL Grand Final, young Cat Mark Blake.
Both men will play crucial roles when their teams meet in a far more important match-up this Sunday – the small matter of a qualifying final at the MCG.
Both will be talked about a lot in the lead-up to the clash, and both might head in as understudies to more senior big men.
Geelong has the in-form Brad Ottens, while there were pleasing signs for the Saints on Sunday with Justin Koschitzke running into good form.
But St Kilda fans must remember that at Telstra Dome on Sunday their big men were only running up against a young fella playing just his third game.
Essendon’s Tom Bellchambers tried his guts out, but he was always going to be out-gunned by two of the AFL’s biggest bodies.
St Kilda’s, and particularly King’s big test, will come this weekend.
The ex-Cat, as he said after being shown the door at Geelong, has a lot to prove.
He is a nice, gentle bloke off the field, and Kingy is still close with many players at the Cattery. He and Matthew Scarlett still regularly catch up.
By playing 19 of 22 matches this year and helping the Saints surge into the top four, he has done plenty – certainly enough to justify the Saints’ faith in him.
But this Sunday he could prove a whole lot more – and gain what many might term some sweet revenge.
