Lance Franklin 1000 goals: Former Swans boss Richard Colless claims club punished after Buddy signed
Lance Franklin’s milestone has opened an old wound with Richard Colless, with the former Swans chairman slamming the AFL’s frosty treatment of the club after Buddy’s move north.
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Former Swans chairman Richard Colless says the people who unsuccessfully tried to “block” Buddy Franklin’s move to Sydney almost a decade ago have ironically become the beneficiaries of his extraordinary reach in New South Wales.
Colless watched Franklin kick his 1000th goal against Geelong on Friday night seated alongside former Sydney administrator Andrew Ireland, who was one of the main architects of the Buddy move.
Colless took yet another swipe at the AFL for ending the Swans’ cost of living allowance after the club won the race for Buddy’s signature in late 2013.
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He says Franklin never considered joining Greater Western Sydney.
“The irony of it all is that the people who went out of their way to try and block him coming to the Swans — and who then punished the Swans — are the major beneficiaries,” Colless said.
“Ten years on, no one knows on what basis they did those things (end the COLA allowance).”
Colless detailed years ago that he had a heated telephone conversation with then AFL Chairman Mike Fitzpatrick in late 2013 after it was revealed Franklin had chosen Sydney.
He would later say that the conversation “was more like dealing with a Mafia Don than a football head”, with the relationship between the Swans and the AFL frosty for a period of time.
Then AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou revealed in the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast recently that he had no issues with Franklin joining the Swans.
Colless said Franklin was “never going to the Giants — there were two options, he was going to stay where he was (Hawthorn), or go and live in Sydney and play for the Swans.”
“This myth has been perpetuated that the AFL thought they had him (at the Giants) and at the last minute we pulled the rug out from then.
“The arrogance and the naivety (of that) is just breathtaking.”
It comes as Ireland, who helped to orchestrate the deal in secret with Franklin’s then manager Liam Pickering, said the once contentious nine-year mega contract was “the best $10 million ever spent.”
Franklin signed a nine-year $10 million deal at the end of the 2013 season, amid criticism that he wouldn’t see out the end of the deal.
He has done more than that, with the 35-year-old almost certain to sign a one-year extension to play on again in 2023.
Ireland told the Herald Sun on Saturday: “We have been blessed to have had Lance as a player, but clearly the code and his capacity to influence more young kids to play the game have also been big winners.”
“Sometimes it is hard to judge Lance from a commercial sense, but his value to the team has been immeasurable. He is a special player. For all the other great players, there is a point of difference, but I don’t think we are going to see another player like him.”
Fan view: Thanks Buddy, for a night I’ll never forget
You hear it all the time.
“Football’s just not the same anymore.
“There’s less goals. They don’t kick straight. You should have seen Dunstall play, Gary Snr, Carey in his prime.
“Those were the days.”
For one magical night, none of that mattered. This was our moment and we had to be there.
We made the trek last week to Accor Stadium on the off chance he’d get a hold of the Giants.
The plan was simple. Buy tickets close to the fence, dust off the Nike sneakers and make a beeline to Buddy.
It didn’t eventuate, the travelling party of three left devastated post-match but still determined, we booked flights and tickets for the next week just five minutes post-siren. We still had faith.
As soon as we arrived at the SCG you could sense a different feeling in the air. We were seven rows from the front, people were in our seats … “Sorry, not tonight.”
Four goals. Not many but also a lot.
We’d held up our end of the bargain, selfishly we just needed the swashbuckling No. 23 to hold up his.
One after the first quarter and the thoughts from last week’s failed trip were starting to creep in. Two trips to Sydney to watch Isaac Heeney kick goal after goal. Fine any other year but it’s not exactly what we had in mind.
Halftime came and the ground went eerie. The chatter went from “Buddy’s going to do it” to “Now everyone in Melbourne will get to see it next week”.
Then the shift came. The showman that he is put the entire SCG crowd on his back and we all went along for the ride. The umpires helped and we got the second goal. A quick trip to the toilet, oh my, he now has three.
He’s going to do it isn’t he?
The aisles now full as were the emotions. No one knew exactly what was going to happen but we knew it would be special.
As Chad Warner lowered his eyes, we all crept five steps forward. Then five steps more.
100 people crammed into each aisle of the Don Bradman Stand with only one thought in mind.
I’m not sure how many watched him line up for goal or witnessed his trademark drop of the football. It didn’t matter. You just knew the man built for moments of theatre had sensed the occasion.
It was like Myer on Boxing Day as the ball sailed through. We’re still not sure if it was a goal. We felt like Rohan Browning in Tokyo as we hit the hallowed turf.
The sight of Buddy became smaller as the crowd engulfed. We didn’t get the hug or high-five from the great man that we wanted. It mattered little.
The mosh-pit was both scary and surreal. We had done it. Everyone had done it. Buddy had done it.
No other sport in the world would allow us to be there and that’s what made it all the more special. Buddy was long gone, we could no longer see him or any other Swans players but now the party had started and everyone was invited.
We all took photos, kissed the turf, chanted and sang.
We’d been told of Lockett, John Coleman, “remember Peter Hudson?”
We’d heard all the stories but now we were part of one.
Remember the time we flew to Sydney and ran on the field for Buddy’s 1000th? I do.
OPPONENTS REVEAL WHAT PLAYING ON BUDDY IS LIKE
Scott Gullan
The peacock strut sent a message and then the vacant look followed by a smile on Lance Franklin’s face told the story for Tom Lonergan.
For a player fighting for his career and trying to get his head around lining up on the most dominant forward in the game, it was a scary experience.
“He had absolutely no idea who I was,” Lonergan recalls about the first time he played on ‘Buddy’.
“He had that sort of look of, ‘Who the f--- are you?’ type of attitude with this peacock strut as he came towards me.”
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Lonergan had played forward when Geelong and Hawthorn squared off in the 2008 grand final but in an attempt to find a niche, he’d been shifted to defence the following year.
“I was in and out of the team at that point and I thought the only way I get to stay here is if I do a job on him and keep him quiet,” he says.
“I played OK on him and kept him quiet and then I got a bit of recognition after that game. From then on that was the match-up and we played Hawthorn so often after that.
“I reckon for the first five games I did OK but everyone was worried about playing on Buddy because he was a superstar who’d kicked 13 goals in a game.
“If you’re an average defender, your career can be lost in one game if he kicks a bag of 10 on you. So you’re sh —ing bricks going into every game against him.”
Geelong great Matthew Scarlett was very happy to see Lonergan come down to the back half and take a player, who he rates in the top three of all-time, off his hands.
“He was one of those young players who you knew was just going to be amazing,” Scarlett says.
“There is a player every few years, a young player who you just know is going to be a superstar. He was definitely one of those.
“I played on him in the ’08 grand final, which was the year he was right up and about (Franklin kicked 113 goals), he was averaging 10 or 11 shots a game that year.
“I remember that being not only just an ordinary day because we lost but a hard day for me having to try and put Buddy away.
“I played a pretty negative game that day and tried to keep Buddy to one or two and I managed to do a reasonable job.”
As Franklin prepares to tackle Geelong at the SCG on Friday night, four goals short of 1000, Scarlett reveals that it was the star forward’s agility and 199cm frame that made him so dangerous.
“You can beat him in the air but once it hits the ground then he is elite at that as well,” he says.
“A lot of the other gun forwards, if you get it to ground then it’s all over and I sort of had the ability to beat them to the next contest or get the ball and run off.
“But Buddy would beat you to the ground ball and be really hard to stop in the air.
“He’s one of those players where you can have a good game on him but he’d still kick four or five on you, he’s that good.”
TRYING TO DIG THE BUDDY DIRT
Alipate Carlile knew he had to come up with something different. The Port Adelaide fullback had tried numerous times to limit Buddy Franklin but hadn’t really had much success.
But this time he had a plan, and it involved Buddy’s sister Bianca.
“My now wife (Joanna) lived with his sister and I was around there and said, ‘C’mon give me some dirt’,” Carlile explains.
“She goes, ‘No, no. I’m giving you nothing’. I was shattered.”
Carlile had some memorable moments on the superstar and is amused that he features a couple of times on Buddy’s top 10 highlights package.
One forgettable day at the MCG in 2011, Hawthorn thrashed Port Adelaide by 165 points with Buddy kicking eight goals while sending another four or five out on the full.
Then there was a day at the SCG when he was playing for Sydney, where he turned three Port defenders, including Carlile, inside out on the wing and kicked the goal from outside 50m on the wrong side for a left-footer.
“The one he kicked on the wing is in his top 10 highlights and I think I’m in it twice from the same game as I remember on this day we were playing a zone defence from the kick-in,” Carlile explains.
“Anyway the ball got to him on the wing and he turned around off four steps and kicked it straight through. He then came up to me and tapped me on the bum and said, ‘That’s the last time you zone off me big fella’.
“It was always good fun playing on him and sometimes you just had to sit back and clap.”
Carlile is in the top five Franklin opponents to have spent 40 minutes or more in a match on him according to Champion Data, with the former Power defender getting the honour on eight occasions.
Lonergan leads the way with 12, while former GWS skipper Phil Davis, who helped deny Buddy his 1000th goal in Round 1, has stood the superstar 11 times.
So, how do you stop him?
You never really stop him but over the years Lonergan, who played 209 games including the 2011 premiership, figured out a method that seemed to be able to limit the damage.
“As the years rolled on I changed my starting position to be in front,” Lonergan explains.
“I always preferred to play from behind because then you know where your player is and where the ball is.
“If you play in front sometimes you lose your man, you can get lost where your player is if they do a double lead or a triple lead.
“But I used to back myself to play in front of Buddy because I thought if I could force them to kick a long high ball in I’d back myself to get back and put a bit of body on him.
“He wasn’t the type of player to take the big contested mark too often but if he got two metres on the lead then you were gone.”
Scarlett, who has also tried to curb Franklin in the coaches’ box during his time as a Geelong assistant, says his old team needs luck on their side on Friday night.
“It’s the same as when you’re playing, you just hope for the best really,” Scarlett said.
“The guy on him is going to have a tough day as you know the ball is going through him a lot.
“With these great players you sort of hope they have a bad day without doing much to them.
“I reckon Dusty (Martin) sort of goes through a little bit of that where some days maybe they can’t be stuffed.
“The days he doesn’t play well, I’m not sure it’s his opponents doing a good job, I reckon it’s him just having a day off and I reckon Buddy is the same.
“Because he’s almost impossible to stop when he is up and going.”
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Originally published as Lance Franklin 1000 goals: Former Swans boss Richard Colless claims club punished after Buddy signed
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