Ben McKay’s place in Essendon’s senior team has become untenable, two high-profile commentators said after his Anzac Day outing against Collingwood, with calls growing for the club to send him back to the VFL.
On the discussion show The Agenda Setters, Kane Cornes and Nick Riewoldt were blunt. "We actually debated whether to show the vision or not because it is pretty damning, some of this stuff," Riewoldt said, describing what he and others had seen on the weekend as difficult to watch. He added specific criticisms of effort and decision-making: "Not choosing to run through a player, running around, and then asking the umpire for a block."
Riewoldt did not stop there. "It was actually hard to watch at times on the weekend, some of these efforts," he said, concluding that the pattern requires action: "And I think it’s gotten to the point now where there needs to be some level of intervention from the coach." He named that intervention: "I think Brad Scott has to step in here — there has to be a circuit-breaker. Send him back to the VFL."
Cornes framed the problem as both immediate and structural. "Something has to be done from a coaching point of view because we can’t continually have this out there, it’s not doing him any favours," he said, noting McKay’s contract situation as part of the dilemma. "Despite the contract, they have to get something out of Ben McKay — (he’s contracted until) 2029," Cornes said, outlining how a long-term deal signed at the end of 2023 complicates straightforward selection decisions.
The criticism centres on form and competitiveness rather than fitness or discipline. For supporters watching, ben mckay's struggles have become impossible to ignore: Riewoldt summed up the practical consequence on game day — "If you want to get a kick at the moment and you’re playing on Ben McKay, you just go get a kick, because there is no competitiveness within this man at the moment."
Cornes returned repeatedly to the single remedy he favours: use the VFL as it was intended. "The VFL is there for a reason, he’s just all at sea," Cornes said. "He’s clapping when the ball is still in play, he’s just not quite with it at the moment." He proposed a specific corrective: "So that is why you have selection integrity; you send them back to the VFL, you say, ‘Look, we might play you in the ruck, for three weeks we need you to compete. Take all the pressure out of it, I just want to see a contest, and then you deserve your place back in the side’."
The timeline sharpens the stakes. McKay joined Essendon as a free agent at the end of 2023 on a six-year deal; Cornes repeatedly stressed that the contract runs through 2029. The Anzac Day match against Collingwood was the most recent flashpoint in a form slump critics say has been apparent for several weeks.
The tension is simple and familiar: a player on a long-term contract whose form has dropped to the point where sidelining him would be the sound coaching move, but whose salary and length of commitment complicate the club’s calculus. Cornes and Riewoldt framed their case not as personal attacks but as practical coaching needs — protect the player, restore competitiveness, and use the lower grade to rebuild confidence and contest edge.
The immediate question for Essendon is whether coach Brad Scott will take the circuit-breaker both commentators demanded. The clearest course they offered is to use selection integrity and the VFL to force a reset; that would be the club’s most direct, controllable option. If Scott does not act, the critics warned, the pattern that made the Anzac Day vision "pretty damning" will likely continue to cost both McKay and the team on the scoreboard.
