"I THINK the biggest thing was putting your hand up and admitting you need help." 

Speaking to ex-teammate Dylan Buckley on the 'Dyl and Friends' podcast, Harry McKay could pinpoint a moment where he decided he needed some help.

The help he received ultimately ended up changing his life and his game forever. 

The year was 2018, and a 20-year-old McKay had only two senior games under his belt and was otherwise developing his game for the-then Northern Blues in the VFL.

McKay opened his 2018 AFL season in Round 5, where he produced a four-goal haul against eventual premier West Coast. However, another dip in form after a month in the AFL side saw him back in the VFL.

"I had three or four games in the AFL after that but wasn’t playing great, it wasn’t going great," McKay said.

"I got dropped back to the twos and as much as anything, just really struggled mentally. Even going to training, I was really anxious."

The mental toll of being dropped was starting to weigh on McKay - a self-proclaimed perfectionist - and he wasn't even aware of the impact before heading home to visit his parents in Warragul. 

Some words from mum Tracey were the spark that McKay needed.

"I remember I went home just to stay the night and Mum said ‘you’re not yourself at the moment, you’re just not Harry, I think you should see someone and get some help’," he said.

"I thought that was pretty full on, for someone to know you so well and say ‘you’re not yourself’.

"It was pretty powerful so after that I went to a sports psychologist and just started the ball rolling." 

Starting off working through the anxiety, gaining tips and strategies to put into place, McKay then started learning how he could apply this knowledge to his football. 

Returning to the senior side in Round 17 of that season, McKay managed to play out the remaining seven games of the season, and hasn't returned to the state league competition since.

"Firstly, it was just debunking some anxiety stuff and working through a bit of a plan to be a bit more confident and a bit more happy with everything and then how that can translate to a footy point of view," he said. 

McKay's commitment to the mental side of the game extended to his highly publicised goalkicking, with the turning point coming in the second half of the 2020 season.

Admittedly playing the best football of his career to date, McKay was getting more shots on goal than ever before, but his inability to convert resulted in a great deal of angst.

"At the end of 2020, I was playing some really solid footy, getting lots of shots on goal, marking the ball well but I was missing so many, I was kicking 1.5," he said.

"I just knew that I was close to playing some really good footy but if nothing else changed and I had kicked straight, I would walk away being in the top five players on the ground, so that was really frustrating."

"I messaged a sports psychologist, straight away saying ‘I want to work on my goalkicking because I’m bloody sick of it, I’m sick of missing.’"

Whether it was his mindset walking into goal or his shot selection when it came to his kick, McKay's willingness to embrace imperfection has seen his conversion improve markedly.

There was a game in particular, against Sydney in Round 15 of 2020, where he remembers instinctively going for a snap and it paying off. With Patrick Cripps at the forefront, he believes his commitment to the mental side of football has been his biggest source of progression since walking into Carlton.

"I feel like I’ve grown a lot in seven years," he said. 

"Being a bit of a perfectionist, you go in thinking you want to kick every goal but the biggest thing was just allowing myself to fail. Attaching too much emotion to that outcome is actually detrimental so coming back and being in the moment a bit and thinking it’s alright if I miss was a big catalyst.

“I feel like I’ve grown a lot in seven years... I've still got a lot of work to do on it,” he said. 

“I think it’s so important, you speak to some of the best guys like Crippa, he’s so big on it and I’ve not mastered it at all, I’ve still got a lot of work to do on it.