The Australian Test-capped McKay claimed two late wickets to leave Ringwood 236 in arrears with eight wickets in hand heading into next week's second day at Windy Hill.

Howell had earlier made 93 at the top of the order as Essendon was bowled out for 269 after winning the toss.

Howell's quick runs set the tone as his near-miss of a century came off 131 balls.

Losing Ben MacRae (25) at 41 was followed soon after by James Seymour for a duck, both victims of Ringwood's best bowler Ian Holland (5-58).

But Ben Fletcher made 55 to share a 120-run stand with Howell, albeit broken by a triple-strike on 161. Fletcher's wicket was followed by a Clint McKay duck and then Howell without any addition to the score.

Thomas Godsell (28) and Zaheer Hussain (37) made runs in the lower order as the Bombers lost 4-26 at the end of the innings.

The Ringwood innings started with a battle of two Test-capped players, with McKay bowling to former Sri Lankan international batsman Michael Vandort.

But the battle was short-lived as McKay trapped Vandort lbw for four, before removing Ringwood's Daniel Rawson for a duck to make the score 2-10.

At stumps, Ringwood was 2-33 off 10 overs, resuming its chase at Windy Hill this Saturday from 11am.

In second XI, Essendon is in danger of outright defeat after slumping to 4-28 in its second innings, still 38 runs behind Ringwood.

Essendon was bowled out for 80 batting first before Ringwood declared its first innings at 3-146.

In third XI, Ringwood posted 209 batting first with Essendon's David Tate taking 4-42 as best of the bowlers.

In fourth XI, Essendon's Andrew Lowther hit 100 exactly to lift the Bombers from 4-63 to 232 all out batting first against Ringwood.