Buddy’s 350th: The best Lance Franklin stories from those who know him best
Lance Franklin is the AFL’s man of mystery, so revered and idolised, yet hardly known. Former teammates shed light on some of the remarkable behind the scenes stories you may not know.
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From school cricket to curtailing club curfews, Lance Franklin’s journey to 350 games has been storeyed, varied — and loved.
Those who know him – and have looked up to him – recount their favourite stories as he prepares to round out the league’s First XXII as the game’s 22nd player to reach the milestone.
‘OWNED THE JOINT’
From the minute Franklin walked into Wesley College in Perth to start Year 11 in 2003, he just about ran the place, according to one of his former teachers.
Trent Cooper, was a high school maths teacher when Franklin was one of the first to be awarded an “Indigenous citizenship scholarship” – no such allowances were made specifically for sport.
And immediately, the tall forward from Dowerin, northeast of Perth, made his presence felt.
“There was a very low Indigenous population at Wesley College at the time,” Cooper recalled.
“The boys we’d had previously were really uncomfortable coming in, really quiet. We had to work to get them out of their shell.
“Buddy literally came in, and owned the joint within two days.
“Rabbit Proof Fence Road, Dowerin, I think, was his address when he first came.
“He just came in and was confident and popular straight away and threw himself into it. I’m pretty sure he never would have worn a shirt and tie before that stage.”
He was Buddy even then, a moniker to differentiate him from his dad, but would never correct anyone at the prestigious college if they reverted to Lance.
His father Lance Snr, Cooper said, was “a ripper” – albeit a little “uncomfortable” in the plush surrounds.
“He only wanted to meet with me, and that was OK,” Cooper said.
“I remember he said to me, ‘if you get this boy to graduate, I’ll buy you a big slab of piss’. He didn’t graduate and I never got the carton.”
Most sporty kids who came through Cooper’s office could try their hand to anything and usually excel.
Athletics and basketball were a tick for Franklin, but with a club or bat in hand?
“In his phys ed class he was the worst golfer in that class by far,” the former Fremantle AFLW coach laughed.
“I think with cricket as well, he was horrendous.”
He’d start up forward for the Wesley footy side and boot a couple, but their poor performances usually meant he’d end up more valuable in defence.
One thing that was always present was a strong sense of belief – not unlike another former student that passed through Cooper’s office just a few years prior.
“The thing that set him apart from everybody and probably why he’s gone so far, he had this belief that he was going to be really good,” he said.
“And it wasn’t an unattractive arrogance that you can see in some people. It wasn’t like that at all. It was a good arrogance about him that ‘I’m going to be really good’.
“The only other person I’ve ever seen at the school that was like that was Ben Cousins. He was my first year teaching … he was the same. The glint in the eye and just ‘where am I going now, what am I going to do next?’ and everyone was following.
“They both had similar characteristics in that sense.”
HEY, BIG SPENDER
Jordan Lewis first met Lance Franklin as a teenager – one from Western Australia and the other, Warrnambool.
The 2004 AFL draft pool would go on to feature a trio of Hawthorn premiership stars, not that they had any fathomable sense of what could be yet to come.
Jordy, Buddy, Roughy (Jarryd Roughead).
Brett Deledio was there too, eventually taken with the top pick to Richmond, who famously selected Richard Tambling with pick four before Franklin went with five.
He was a magician even then, Lewis said, showcasing his trickery at a training camp at the AIS.
“We had a two-hour period of down time, and we were just in this courtyard kicking the footy,” Lewis said.
“All I remember was Buddy with bare feet and kicking the ball – he was inventing kicks that I’d never seen before.
“In a weird way looking back on that, you could see the passion that he had to be creative. That was probably a natural thing that he didn’t really think of, but he would have been out kicking that football – we came and went for interviews – for three or four hours, just like you were down at the local park mucking around.
“That was really the first time I’d met him and it struck me that this kid had – unbeknown to him, probably – a real passion for the game and the creative side of the game.”
The pair got a little too creative for their own good once they landed at Hawthorn.
“We got our first paycheck and Bud and I went down to Glenferrie Road and we spent it within half an hour,” Lewis recalled with glee.
“We bought a new phone, new jeans, new shoes, and then thought, ‘s … we’ve got a whole month now where we’ve got to scrape together some money’.”
Franklin, now 36, would go on to sign the most lucrative contract in the game with a swag of endorsements to match.
It’s a far cry from the Glenferrie spree.
There were midnight curfews that were sneakily dodged as draftees and Lewis jokes that he’s never been asked more about any other teammate – or to get more signatures.
By 2008, they were preparing for a grand final against the Cats and Lewis says Franklin nearly did a number on himself.
“He basically nearly did his quad or his hamstring,” he said.
“Because there was such a big crowd, and after training had finished, the forwards would go and do goalkicking. Because there was a crowd there, he didn’t want to stop.
“To the point where (then-Hawks fitness boss) Andrew Russell was like, mate, you have to stop otherwise you’ll do your hamstring or your quad, the day before a grand final.
“It’s weird – he’s able to open himself up when there is something between him and the fans. If it’s him signing autographs or doing an interview, he’s quite reserved. But if he’s out on the field and he’s able to express himself in different ways, that’s his personality.”
Franklin’s shy, Lewis says – “like, really shy”, which he concedes is “certainly part of the intrigue”.
But he hears what’s said about him, “and that motivates him”.
Lewis will be there on Thursday night.
“I would have thought between him, Roughy and I, that he would have been the first to leave the game,” he said.
“He was so unprofessional in his early years, because he could. He could go out on the weekend and run a 3km time trial the next day. He was just that type of person and didn’t have to put much time into his body.”
Despite that trait, he’s “never seen an athlete like him”.
“We used to do this camp in Coffs Harbour and (Olympic rower) Drew Ginn was there. we did this running session which was 21 x 150s. You had 30 seconds to get back to the start.
“Bud was doing them in 17 to 18 seconds and Drew goes ‘I’ve been all over the world and seen athletes and really big feats … I’ve never seen a person of that height or athleticism in my life’. “He was just a freak athlete.”
‘THAT’S HOW I ROLL’
Ben Dixon knew it was risky.
Franklin’s early goalkicking days were varied – there’d be half a dozen shots on goal, but for a return of 1.5, 2.4. Enter Jason Dunstall – third on the all-time goalkicking list.
“Jason was like, ‘Buddy’s is a very flawed technique at goal’ … he’s running way out left, and this is where the inconsistency is coming from’,” Dixon remembers.
“He said to Clarko (then-Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson), ‘I want to do a goalkicking lesson with Buddy’.
“Clarko said, ‘why don’t you take them all out – Roughy, and Dicko, all of them?’. So he did.”
Dixon said Dunstall lined up agility poles, to “keep Buddy straight” from his unique arc kicking style.
“It was almost like a train line. Buddy had his first kick and it was straight out on the full from directly in front,” Dixon said.
“He had his second kick and took almost a divot. He’s getting angrier and angrier.
“Then, his third kick, he literally fresh-aired it. It felt so unnatural for him to do that.
“Then he starts to walk off. And Jason goes, ‘where are you going Buddy?’.
“He doesn’t even respond. He just kept walking towards the changerooms. I walked over and asked him what was the matter.
“He goes, ‘mate, that fat bastard doesn’t want me to break his record!’.
“So I turned back to Jason and he said ‘what did he say?’. I said ‘mate, he’s got a tight hammy, he’s going back in’. I didn’t have the heart to tell him.
“Now, he’s fourth in the all-time goalkicking list. It was one of the funniest things.”
Dixon said off the field and amid Melbourne night-life, Franklin was “like Elvis”.
“Everyone wanted to touch him. Be near him. Buy a drink next to him,” he said.
“Honestly, he was like Elvis walking in. He had a likeable arrogance. He wasn’t offensive. He was so likeable. The more he got to know you, the more you saw of his character and his cheek, and you just loved it.
“When he would go in public, you would never see a more reserved person, he was not a big spruiker or strutter. He was the total opposite. He’s very humble. He knows what he is and what he’s doing in the game. But he was never arrogant. That’s what I loved about him.”
IT’S A NUMBERS GAME
Franklin’s move to Sydney was arguably football’s best-kept secret, with a secret meeting between the superstar forward, Swans chief executive Andrew Ireland, coach John Longmire and Franklin’s then-manager Liam Pickering.
At Ireland’s home in January 2013, the plans were hatched with the nine-year, $10 million deal kept firmly under wraps until two days after Hawthorn’s eventual premiership triumph – nine months later.
Then came the announcement, and the all-important case for a jumper number.
“The day of the press conference to announce Bud as an official Swans player was at the SCG, with every journo in town,” Pickering recalled this week.
“We were in a meeting room minutes before the first time he’d be in a Swans polo — the coach, footy manager, CEO, media manager, Bud and I.
“The topic comes up regarding the number 23.
“I think it was the media manager Johnno Monasso who said ‘what if they ask what number Buddy is going to wear?’.”
It had, Pickering says, already been a part of the negotiations.
He’d be wearing 23.
But no one had told young Jordan Lockyer, who held the locker upon Buddy’s arrival.
“Horse (Longmire) said, ‘hang on a minute, I haven’t spoken to young Jordan as yet, so if it comes up I think we need to just ignore it and move on as it hasn’t been decided — no comment’.
“Andrew Ireland said, ‘our marketing team have 100 jumpers ready to go upstairs which I’m tipping aren’t for Jordan, mate!”.
The question, naturally, came.
“To which Buddy says,” Pickering laughed.
“’I’m sure the young fella can get another number’.”
THE IMPACT
Jamarra Ugle-Hagan was just two when Franklin was drafted.
But the influence of the Noongar-Whadjuk man on Ugle-Hagan – not only given his Indigenous heritage but his own prowess as a forward – is palpable.
The young Dog was likened to Franklin in his draft year, which might not be a coincidence given how much time he spent shaping his own game on the highlights of the two-time premiership superstar.
“I used to watch his highlights before every game I played as a junior,” Ugle-Hagan said.
“Just to try and put it into my game. I reckon I watched his 13 goals twice a week. I just always watched it, and watched it.
“My favourite memory would be his premierships, but him playing with Cyril (Rioli).
“I loved the way they connected when they played together.”
The pair share a booming left boot and a deep connection to culture, too – sparking a sense of something special in the next generation that will be felt far beyond his 350th game.
“To be able to do what he’s done as an Aboriginal man, I’m just so proud of him.”
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