King's Blessing: 'Roos Great Backs Grandson's England Bid

Max King’s legendary grandfather, Johnny, a former Kangaroos star and seven-time premiership winner, has backed the Bulldogs prop to play for England in the end of season Ashes series.

Johnny King, who was inducted into the NRL Hall Fame in 2008, was among the record 65,305 crowd at Accor Stadium on Good Friday as Max ended the NRL’s longest tryscoring drought of more than 2000 days in Canterbury’s 32-0 defeat of South Sydney.

“It was great, and no-one was more pleased than I was to see him score a try,” Johnny told NRL.com.

“You are always glad to see anyone - especially a team player [like Max] - score, but when it is your grandson, naturally I get a thrill from seeing him score a try. Now the monkey is off his back.”

Asked why he had been such a prolific tryscorer – crossing for 143 tries in 191 matches for the Dragons between 1960 and 1971 – and Max has managed to score just three tries in 122 appearances for the Titans, Storm and Bulldogs, Johnny said: “I might have been a little bit faster”.

Johnny played 15 Tests on the wing for Australia, but he fully supports Huddersfield-born Max representing his English heritage through mother Caroline, who met his father David while he was playing in the Super League.

“He was saying that, and it would be pleasing if the opportunity comes his way. You take the opportunity when it comes,” Johnny said.

King told AAP: "My mum's side of the family would love that. I always say I'm half English and half Aussie … I'd love to be able to get a call off anyone".

King moved to Australia when he was seven years old and is eligible to play for NSW after taking his first steps towards becoming a fourth-generation player - after great grandfather Cec King (South Sydney 1945-46), Johnny (St George 1960-71) and David, who played for Gold Coast in 1991 and 1992 before stints with London Broncos, Huddersfield Giants and Warrington Wolves – in Newcastle.

After running a game high 232-metres with the ball and making 37 tackles against Souths, as well as scoring his first try since September 6 2019, Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo also suggested King would be worthy of a Blues jersey.

“My phone's always available, it's always on, so whatever happens happens,” King said of his representative aspirations.

“With the team’s success I feel like there are a lot of names in the ring for both NSW and Queensland in our side that have all been playing really well, so your name gets thrown up there because your team is playing really well.

“I just want us to keep being successful and when football is fun good things come off the back of that.

“It is a privilege to be a part of big games and it is a privilege to be winning games and giving back to the fanbase – it was great to have 65,000 in the house and I am sure they enjoyed it. When you are losing you don’t get to play in big games.”

For King, the match against the Rabbitohs was the biggest of his career, which begun in 2017 at the Titans, and scoring a try had capped it off, as he will no longer have to endure the almost daily reminders about his drought.

Even mum, Caroline, joked afterwards how she would have to pay him $7 as he used to receive $1 for a try in juniors and she'd add an extra dollar for each year he hadn’t scored.

“We actually started the day off by walking over to the ground from the hotel and the reception is something I have never seen before," King said.

“Experienced boys like Stephen Crichton and Sitili Tupouniua, who been part of teams that have won grand finals and played Origin, had never seen anything like that, so it is something I will cherish for the rest of my life.

“I just feel so blessed to be part of such a big game and to score and get the monkey off my back, it feels like a dream come true.

“I'm just a dude, and that's why I give glory to God, because at the end of the day in my eyes I'm just a pub footballer running around on the big stage.”

With the crowd erupting and team-mates celebrating wildly after King scored his first try in 2051 days, the 27-year-old revealed he had been reminded of the drought on an almost daily basis, with even Ciraldo joking about it on match eve.

“It is not something that has flown under the radar by any means,” he said.

“You know what’s funny … I was just on social media and some bloke, like a sort of burner account, was on there, spraying me and giving it to me like, like ‘I can't even score a try’ and this that.

“I laughed about it and I actually told Ciro. I said to Ciro, ‘mate, are you sure that's not your burner account trying to fire me up and trying to get a response’. He looked at me at halftime, gave me a wink, and said, ‘it was me’.”