Lance Franklin sprung two surprises when he left AFL heartland in Melbourne for Sydney a decade ago: he snubbed the league’s shiny new expansion club, and his nine-year contract was a then-astronomical $10 million.

“People saying we were being irresponsible ... that we’d signed him for too long, we were paying him too much, he wouldn’t last out the contract,” Sydney Swans chairman Andrew Pridham told AFR Weekend, of the man known almost universally as “Buddy”.