Buddy’s brilliance: How a player with natural flaws became an AFL giant

Buddy Franklin, an AFL player with natural flaws, has been a giant of the game. In March 2022, he kicked his 1000th goal, when this piece was first published.

Tony Lockett is thrilled one of the most exclusive of groups in the game will finally have another member.

More than 25 years after Gary Ablett booted his 1000th goal, Lance Franklin is five goals away from becoming only the sixth man to reach the magical milestone.

Forward power: Tony Lockett with Lance Franklin in 2017.Credit: Getty Images

“It’s a massive honour for him and a great effort,” Lockett said. “He deserves it. It’s fantastic. We wish him all the best, be sure it’s a great thrill, and I’m sure he’s looking forward to it.

“We look forward to watching him kick the thousand.”

Few dare rule out a seventh inductee – if only because you never say never – but, as the man known universally as “Plugger” says, “I think it will be a while before it happens again.”

So, how has Franklin, a player described by some as not a true full-forward, who is not a clean overhead mark and can’t kick on his right boot, overcome these deficiencies to stand on the verge of 1000 goals? And how has he defied the trends of the defensive modern era, and survived the physical battering a key forward takes each week, to become one of the greats?

Ted Richards, both a former opponent and teammate of Franklin, has a simple answer: Franklin’s strengths are so much better than those of his rivals that they compensate for his flaws.

Take his marking, for example

Overhead, Franklin is not a one-grabber, which gives his defender extra time to spoil – if they have the speed to get close enough.

“The reality is he’s so quick off the mark often he has time to take the two grabs because he’s pushed off five metres from you and has the luxury of doing that,” Richards explains.

The alternative, to play Franklin from in front, is fraught, as it concedes the space on the goal side of the contest to a player few backmen can match for speed.

Richards’ plan was one of harm minimisation. He accepted Franklin, as a forward in a strong Hawthorn side, would get plenty of opportunities, so he aimed to make sure the ball would not get to dangerous areas.

Except, as this graphic showing where each of his 995 goals was kicked from illustrates, there are few parts of the ground where Franklin cannot impact the game. He can score from outside 50, deep in pockets and from the boundary.

Higher up the field, he becomes a 360-degree player. Give up front spot and Franklin can take an uncontested lead-up mark, then wheel on his left foot and open up targets not available to those without his kicking penetration.

Play him from in front, and you run the considerable risk of being turned inside out by his ability to do a 180-degree turn and lose his opponent in traffic, which former Sydney, Western Bulldogs and Gold Coast coach Rodney Eade said is an underrated skill.

Defenders have become the fall guys in Franklin’s highlight reel. Think of retired Essendon defender Cale Hooker, an All-Australian and club best-and-fairest winner who was famously left in Franklin’s dust in 2010, and former Crow Daniel Talia in 2017. You can watch some of those goals here.

The ultra-defensive strategies of the modern game have both helped and hindered Franklin. They have not curtailed his prowess, as his athleticism allows him to both lead at the player with the ball, and with the flight of the ball.

“When he’s played some of his best footy with us he’s been up the ground, 40-70 metres out, and he’s able to use the full 360 degrees,” Swans coach John Longmire said.

“He’s able to run at the ball, he’s able to turn, go sideways and the defender, whether he plays front or behind, he has to make the decision.”

Richards was more comfortable when Franklin took him to a wing and accepted kicks out of defence but, as the 2012 grand final showed, his scoring range is further than any other.

“There was one ball, he was 70 out, but you’d rather him having a shot from 60 out than 30 or 40,” Richards said.

“You’re probably happy if he finishes the game with 20-something disposals because he’s pushed so far into the midfield, but you wouldn’t be happy if he’s had half those disposals but five goals.”

Though every player in the league would know to guard Franklin’s left side, he still finds a way to get onto his preferred foot.

In the nine seasons Longmire has coached Franklin, he cannot recall his superstar forward kicking on his right foot. “That’s not to say he hasn’t done it,” Longmire said.

“He has elite footwork and elite balance, which allows him to get back to where he needs to go.”

Franklin the competitor

As freakishly gifted as he is, Franklin’s work ethic, toughness and football nous are undervalued.

In 2020, he entered the dreaded hub despite having been ruled out for the season, so he could provide moral support to his teammates and complete the meticulous training program the Swans had designed for him.

That dedication helps explain how Franklin, 35, has overcome the bumps and bruises that come from having multiple opponents jump into him in marking contests, to play into the ninth and final year of his mega-deal.

That deal shocked the football world after Hawthorn’s 2013 flag, when powerhouse Sydney blindsided the AFL and expansion club Greater Western Sydney, who had made Franklin an offer, by signing him to a nine-year, $10 million contract. Few outside the Swans thought he would make it through the contract; then deputy league CEO Gillon McLachlan said the Swans were taking “an extraordinary risk”.

Franklin may have a celebrity profile, but he is a football tragic who loves watching games, be they from today or yesteryear.

Longmire dreads seeing old North Melbourne matches on Fox Footy, knowing there will soon be a critical message from Franklin.

“What I feared most was his ability to embarrass you, Cale Hooker-style.”

Ted Richards

“I get a bit nervous when the message goes off in the middle of summer and Bud’s got some time and he’s critiquing my forward craft,” Longmire said. “He’s very clear in his feedback to me.”

The aura

Shane Warne had it, and so does Franklin: the ability to get inside their opponent’s head.

“What I feared most was his ability to embarrass you, Cale Hooker-style,” said Richards, who played for the Bombers before joining Franklin at the Swans.

“You always knew you were one contest away from Buddy doing something more freakish again,” Richards said. “And you being played for decades as the one who he did it to. That was the thing I was conscious of going into games.”

One of Franklin’s likely opponents on Saturday, Giants defender Sam Taylor, offers another insight into the mental hold he can have on defenders.

“When I play on a forward, I feel like I can have something over him, like height, pace, strength or something like that,” Taylor said this week.

“But with him, I feel like he’s taller, he’s stronger, I feel like we’re the same pace. I pride myself on my ground game as well – and he does that. You have to always be on.

“He has this presence when the ball’s on the ground, he can snap it from 50 as well. No other players can kick a goal outside 50 as comfortably. So, it’s hard to get that edge. When you put those together, it’s tough to beat.”

Unlike Warne – who lived life in the same bold and brash manner he played cricket – Franklin’s on-field demeanour contrasts with his reserved personality away from the game.

If there are few of his ex-Hawthorn teammates paying tribute this week, it’s perhaps due to Franklin’s discomfort at having close friends speak so fondly of him in public.

Franklin’s on-field swagger is there for all to see. Less known is his state of zen in the moments before he enters his on-field sanctuary.

Lance Franklin needs only five more goals to reach the magical 1000-goal milestone.Credit: Getty

“He’s got a sense of calm come over him because he knows he’s about to go onto the footy ground, where he absolutely loves to be,” Longmire said.

“He’s so good at talking to other players and making them feel at ease going onto an AFL ground. He’s done it so many times and done it to a high level, he’s able to pass that knowledge and confidence on, not only through chat but also body language.

“When he’s about to run onto an AFL ground his competitive juices are at [their] highest, but it’s also when he’s clearest to be able to execute and look forward to the contest.”

Bradman-esque

To fully appreciate Franklin’s impending milestone, consider that no other player who has debuted after 2000, when Western Bulldogs coach Terry Wallace adapted Eade’s flooding tactics designed to stymie scoring, has come close to four figures. Nick Riewoldt is next best with 718, soon to be overtaken by cousin Jack.

Of those to retire post-2000, excluding Lockett’s short-lived return in 2002, Matthew Lloyd has come closest with 926 goals, though 354 of them came when defence was no more sophisticated than a hapless defender being told to fill the hole.

Just as Don Bradman’s batting average of 99.94 was head and shoulders above any to have played the game, Franklin sits well clear of his contemporaries.

“It’s not a big gap, it’s a monster gap,” coaching great Kevin Sheedy said. “He’s the one person who has kicked 1000 goals and overcome the flood.

“There were many to beat at that end of the ground. For a player who hasn’t been a great mark that’s a bloody good effort.”

Buddy in the ’90s

Which raises the question, how many goals would Franklin have kicked had he played in the 1980s and ’90s when Lockett, Ablett and Jason Dunstall could lead from the goal square with unimpeded passages to the ball?

Sheedy says Franklin would already have 1100, while Eade goes higher.

“He could have kicked 1200, 1400, I don’t know,” Eade said. “It’s too hard to say. Someone would have changed something around him about it. He might have kicked 1200 now if he could have kicked accurately in his first 10 years.”

Longmire is confident Franklin would have dominated any era.

“I would not have liked to have been full-back on him out of the goal square in the ’90s,” Longmire said. “I’d have had some unusual sleepless nights similar to what I had when I was playing Lockett, Dunstall, Ablett the next day. It would have been a nightmare.”

The future

The Swans want Franklin for next year, and Franklin wants to play. The question is whether his body will allow him to.

“I just think it’s about training and playing,” Longmire said. “We’re only round one, maybe a fraction premature to be talking about that. I think everyone understands that. He’s 35 and we haven’t even played the first game of the season. That takes care of itself at some stage down the track.”

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