Go inside the key training sessions, moments and reaction to Lance Franklin’s incredible 2008 season

Lance Franklin stood in the Telstra Dome rooms looking dejected. That week the Hawthorn superstar had his first negative experience with the tabloids. But how did he manage to turn that into a calculated dismantling of an opponent?

Lance Franklin turned Hawthorn’s Coffs Harbour training camp into a scene out of Gladiator.

Like Russell Crowe fighting off challengers at the Colosseum, Franklin left teammate after teammate in his dust as he powered through 21 consecutive 150m sprints.

“The whole list was having a crack at him for one or two reps, and every single one he ran between 17-19 seconds,” former Hawks high performance boss Andrew Russell said.

“He was in the top two of every single 150m. Different guys were just coming at him and he was so competitive that he just wanted to beat them every single time.

“It was a pretty special session – I’d never seen a footballer do anything like it. I’ve seen track athletes run that well, but I hadn’t seen anyone run that well at 98-99kg.”

Hawthorn insiders look back on the 2007 elimination final – where Buddy sank Adelaide with his seventh goal, booted from 52m with the final kick of the game – as the making of Franklin.

“That was the birth of him, and there’s that great image of him giving the double-python to the crowd,” dual premiership teammate Brad Sewell said.

But the following summer, in which Franklin celebrated just his 21st birthday, foreshadowed what was truly to come.

“He wanted to dominate every single session,” Russell said.

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Lance Franklin brought thousands of fans through the gates.

BOX-OFFICE BUDDY

THAT flawless pre-season ensured Franklin Fever quickly swept the football world.

Franklin destroyed Brisbane Lions with 8.6 (171 SuperCoach points) at the Gabba in Round 5 as he powered to the top of the Coleman Medal with a typically-erratic 29.17.

It was just Franklin’s 41st game. Yet he was already the game’s most watchable player.

“Franklin is drawing people to the football again for the first time since Gary Ablett Sr,” Hawks legend Dermott Brereton wrote in the Herald Sun.

“People with no allegiance to Hawthorn are going along just to watch Buddy. And so they should. Buddy is the player most likely to kick a 12-goal-plus tally, which we haven’t seen for some time.”

Brereton also declared Franklin would challenge Ablett Sr as the most gifted player he had seen.

The column ran in a double-page spread comparing Franklin’s output at the age of 21 years and 81 days to a suite of superstars.

Franklin’s average of 2.5 goals per game had, in order, Jason Dunstall, Lance Whitnall, Chris Grant, Warren Tredrea, Wayne Carey, Brendan Fevola, Nick Riewoldt, Jonathan Brown, Matthew Pavlich and David Neitz covered.

Matthew Richardson (2.9) was the only “roaming forward” in front of Buddy.

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But coach Alastair Clarkson refused to feed the publicity beast. He wanted to keep the swagger of a young man who breathed self-belief and oxygen in equal parts in check.

So much so that Trevor Grant’s comment piece – headlined ‘Relax, Al, and admit some Buddy love’ – suggesting Hawthorn feared Franklin more than the opposition, and telling Clarkson to chill out – also ran on the spread.

Elsewhere, the love for Buddy flowed. He was the boy wonder with loping athleticism who had the uncanny ability to lift football from the mundane to the marvellous.

Lions coach Leigh Matthews admitted he sat in the coach’s box watching Franklin’s magic in disbelief.

“He’s spectacular,” Matthews said after Round 5.

“He’s fantastic for the game, and I wish I wasn’t coaching against him. He’s fantastic for the crowd, just fantastic. He’s going to give so much entertainment over a long period of time.’’

THE SHOWMAN

FRANKLIN stood in the Telstra Dome rooms looking dejected.

It was 6pm on Saturday and Hawthorn was preparing to battle Essendon in Round 11.

Franklin’s brush with the tabloids could’ve been the reason he looked upset. Hawthorn had suffered its first loss the previous week and hours later Franklin was booted from Melbourne nightclub CQ.

Female revellers alleged they were propositioned, but the he-said, she-said affair quickly fizzled as Hawthorn cleared Franklin of any wrongdoing.

Instead, Franklin was simply pulling a pre-game stunt.

“Bud was looking a bit dejected before the game and waiting for someone to quiz him, ‘What’s up?’” premiership teammate Xavier Ellis said.

“He said something like, ‘I just don’t want to do this to a brother’ … with a smile on his face.

“He was alluding to what he was about to do to Paddy Ryder, and he wandered out and kicked nine on him.

“I reckon that might have been the end of Paddy Ryder in the backline. Buddy pre-empted it and he went out and did it.

“He was just a showman, a real showman.”

Franklin bagged 9.5, Matthew Lloyd finished in the backline and, in reference to the nightclub story, Shane Crawford wrote this in the next day’s Sunday Herald Sun:

“I have played with some big names — Jason Dunstall, John Platten and Dermott Brereton — to name a few. But the focus on Buddy is greater than anyone I’ve seen at Hawthorn.”

Lance Franklin ensured Paddy Ryder didn’t spend too much more time as a defender.

PLAYING ON BUDDY

NICK Maxwell usually peeled off Hawks Michael Osborne and Brendan Whitecross to help quell Franklin.

But with Shane Wakelin and Simon Prestigiacomo missing in Round 18, Maxwell walked to the goalsquare to stand next to the main man.

“Like a good coach, I remember Clarko’s runner came out and basically every other pair went right up the ground so it was just the two of us standing in the goalsquare,” Maxwell said.

“I sort of looked at Buddy and smiled and was like, ‘f***’. He’s bigger than me, stronger than me, faster than me and fitter than me.”

Maxwell had done his homework. He knew he couldn’t match Franklin for speed and so he stood 25m in front of him.

He knew Sam Mitchell could kick either foot, but preferred the 25m hit-up, unlike Luke Hodge’s 50m over-the-top entry.

He also knew Cyril Rioli wanted to hook and pull kicks around his body, and always looked to get back on his left foot.

There was only one problem. Franklin knew all that too.

“That was the extra part that comes with it for people who think he just leads and you get beaten,” Maxwell said.

“It’s the 20 seconds before that where he sees which way the ball is coming, he sees which players are going to get the ball and then he knows what space he has to open up.

“There’s a lot of mental capacity as a defender to be thinking through those things at the same time.

“Because if you think you can beat him athletically you’re kidding yourself. No one can beat him athletically, you’ve got to do all the work beforehand.”

Franklin booted another 8.6 at the MCG, taking his season tally to 85. Maxwell felt helpless.

“Obviously Buddy is a freak, so I would dive and get a finger nail in and spoil it, and as you’re getting up on your feet he’s snapping it across your shoulder from 50m straight through,” he said.

“Some of the goals that night were ridiculous.”

Remarkably, the game review was kind to Maxwell. He played in front, cut the angles and the tape showed there wasn’t much more he could’ve done.

“It’s funny … my coaches were rapt with my game, I got a vote in the best-and-fairest and he kicked eight,” Maxwell said.

There was nothing Nick Maxwell could do.

Lance Franklin put on a clinic against the Magpies.

TRIPLE-FIGURE KICKER

IT took just 26 minutes for Franklin to be swamped by thousands of buddies in Round 22.

Franklin entered the dead-rubber against Carlton on 98 goals and promptly became the first man to crack the century in a home-and-away season since Tony Lockett in 1998.

It hasn’t happened since and is likely to remain football’s final ton.

“The coaches or the game tactically won’t allow for a player to have that much influence over a season ever again,” Sewell said.

Channel 10 commentator Stephen Quartermain captured the iconic moment as the crowd of 49,057 spilled on to the Docklands turf.

“Lance Franklin joins the 100-club, and people power has spoken! Out they come by their thousands,” Quartermain, a Hawks tragic, said.

“It is one of the great traditions of AFL football, there’s not many left. I know the AFL doesn’t like it, I know probably the police don’t like it, but it very rarely happens in the game.

“Let’s savour the moment.”

Franklin — the first indigenous player to reach the milestone — embraced a beaming Jarryd Roughead first, and then turned to Rioli, Robert Campbell and Sam Mitchell.

Their huddle quickly resembled bees to a honey pot and the game was halted for eight minutes as Franklin was escorted down the race by security guards.

“All week we had talks with security and when this happens follow A), B) and C) and we don’t think the crowd will enter the field,” Ellis said.

“When someone kicks 100 goals, you don’t care what the rules are you have to get on the field. I remember thinking, ‘You beauty, here comes three levels on the field’.

“I was sitting on the bench next to (boundary rider) Christi Malthouse having a really good chuckle watching him getting walked down the race by security like he was some sort of absolute rock star.”

That night sticks in Sewell’s brain more for the sub-plot – Clarkson denying Brendan Fevola his century.

“In typical Clarko style he dropped a man behind the ball,” Sewell said.

“That’s the type of coach Clarko is, isn’t he? He’s not going to give any goals away, whatsoever.”

Fevola booted seven goals in the second half to finish the season stranded on 99, and was desperately asking opponents for a slice of charity in the dying minutes.

Fans invade the ground after Buddy’s 100th goal of the season.

‘NEVER AGAIN’ – CLARKO’S MESSAGE

SHANE Crawford remembers it clearly. Clarkson said he was very proud of Franklin’s century when the Hawks reviewed their Round 22 win on the Monday.

“But Clarko never wanted that to happen again, as it meant we relied too much on (Franklin),” Crawford said.

Sharing the load was Clarkson’s theme all season, according to Sewell.

“I remember Michael Osborne receiving credit a number of times in a review meeting on the Monday, and for no other reason than for playing his role,” Sewell said.

“For instructing and for maintaining the running patterns that his position should, and that allows guys like Bud and the other forwards to have the influence they did.”

Four days after Clarkson’s message Franklin, Roughead, Jordan Lewis and Campbell Brown met for breakfast.

It was the morning of their qualifying final and Brown has told the story that Franklin, irked at Western Bulldog opponent Dale Morris’s appearance in the Herald Sun, declared over a latte: “I’ll drop eight on him tonight”.

The moment after Lance Franklin kicked his 100th goal of the 2008 season.

A menacing Morris was photographed by Michael Klein in a black hoodie on the back page. The headline read: “Hey Buddy, get ready to … MEET YOUR MARKER”.

But Morris’s quotes were far from provocative and yet a merciless Franklin played like he’d been personally attacked.

Franklin kicked five on Morris in the first half and then three on Brian Lake in the second half, taking his tally to 18 goals from three finals.

The signature goal came in the last quarter, when Franklin beat Lake in a one-on-one, paddled the ball to himself and then, off three steps, thumped the ball through from 50m at goalpost-height.

“He’s such a competitive bastard, and he’s always loved the big moment and loved the big games,” Sewell said.

Once again, Franklin had pre-empted his own brilliance.

SOFTER SEPTEMBER

FRANKLIN’S 113th and final goal for 2008 pushed Hawthorn 21 points in front of Geelong in the final quarter of the Grand Final.

Franklin marked in front of Matthew Scarlett and, in trademark fashion, played on, wheeled on to his left and split the middle.

But Scarlett beat Franklin (2.1) that day and St Kilda’s Max Hudghton kept him to 1.1 in the preliminary final as Hawthorn showed it was a champion – and not a one-man – team.

Still, the Franklin obsession remained. The Herald Sun headline after the 54-point prelim win read: “Hawks dispel Buddy myth”. Even Campbell Brown bought in.

“Probably the most pleasing thing is that Buddy didn’t play well,” Brown said.

“Everyone thought he needed to kick five or six for us to win, but Roughead stepped up, Rioli kicked a few and Mark Williams was sensational.”

RADAR DILUTES BUDDY TON

FRANKLIN capped his monster season with a premiership and the only best-and-fairest he has ever won.

But it could’ve been bigger. Most weekends Franklin had more shots than a rowdy 21st and he finished 2008 with 113.88 from 225 attempts.

“I just remember that feeling of, ‘Geez, Bud was quiet’ and you look at the scoreboard and he’s kicked 4.7,” Ellis said.

Sewell pointed out that Jason Dunstall was once brought to training to straighten Franklin’s hook-style run-up, known as the ‘Buddy arc’. It didn’t work.

Brereton said in his Round 5 column: “If you transferred Brendan Fevola’s goalkicking ability into Franklin, that hybrid would have kicked between 40 and 50 goals after five matches. That is scary.”

Franklin’s accuracy of 50.2 per cent ranked 42nd out of the top 50 goalkickers in 2008.

If Franklin emulated Lloyd’s accuracy that season he would’ve kicked 152 goals – and topped Peter Hudson (Hawthorn, 1971) and Bob Pratt’s (South Melbourne, 1934) shared record of 150.

Lance Franklin after the 2008 Grand Final.

TEAMMATES BLINDED BY BUDDY

THOSE closest to Franklin’s freakiness took it for granted.

“You became almost a bit immune to it,” Sewell said.

“You’ve got front-row seats week-in, week-out, and he was doing things that if anybody else did you’d be scratching your head going, ‘That’s an unbelievable piece of play.’

“But it was just, ‘Oh well, Bud’s kicked another one’.”

Franklin has since won another three Coleman Medals, but hasn’t gone close to replicating the dizzying heights of 2008.

“I expected Bud to be able to do that for the next six or seven years,” Ellis said.

“Because 1) he was young and 2) he was so athletic that no one could stop him.

“The game changed a bit, but I reckon his body shape changed a bit too, too. Skinnier Bud was something else.”

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Franklin became heavier – he was listed at 105kg in 2020 – after 2008 as his GPS numbers and possibly his motivation levels dipped.

But was he the greatest?

“I always put him on top of the tree,” Ellis said.

“For example, when we played Geelong – don’t get me wrong, Gary Ablett was a better footballer than Sam Mitchell – but at the end of game Gary Ablett’s had 35 and kicked a goal, whereas Sam Mitchell’s had 30 and 10 clearances.

“They don’t cancel each other out, but there’s not a gaping difference.

“But if Buddy Franklin was on it was almost game over.”

WHY BUDDY COULDN’T MAINTAIN THAT CONDITION  

The man who built Lance Franklin into the AFL’s most unstoppable specimen has revealed ‘Buddy’ was at the peak of his powers in 2008 – but couldn’t maintain that condition.

“He played at 99kg that year, and it was his best power-weight ratio,” former Hawks high performance guru Andrew Russell told the Herald Sun.

“That was the year everything came together for him physically. He had 3-4 really good preparations, his body weight was perfect and his motivation was really high because he hadn’t really achieved much in the game.”

Franklin arrived in the 2004 draft as “a really scrawny 89-90kg” teenager who struggled in the gym but immediately dropped jaws on the track.

Franklin clocked 42 seconds in a 300m sprint at Dendy Park in his first run for the Hawks and barely missed a session in 2007-08.

“He had one of those years (2008) where it didn’t matter what you threw at him, he just ate everything up,” Russell said.

“I felt like I could’ve thrown 20-30 per cent more at him and it would’ve been no worries. It was like, ‘OK, is that all you’ve got for me?’ And then he took that attitude into the year.

“He had two seasons – 2007-08 – where he trained as the best athlete in the game, and he was the best athlete in the game, and his motivation levels matched being the best athlete in the game.

“He wanted to dominate in terms of touch, speed and power and because he was stronger and more powerful than most of the players he would just run straight through them.

“You’ve got tough, hard men like Luke Hodge, and he’s just taking these guys on with ball in hand and saying, ‘Good on you mate, I’m going to run straight through you’.”

“Even if they did tackle him, he knew because he was so tall with big, long arms and a high centre of gravity, he could just dish a handball off.

“But I don’t think he’s ever been at his best again since that year, physically.”

Franklin became heavier after 2008 as his GPS numbers declined. He was listed at 105kg in 2020.

Originally published as Go inside the key training sessions, moments and reaction to Lance Franklin’s incredible 2008 season