Champion Data: Stats show how Charlie Curnow is hitting Lance Franklin-like highs in superb AFL season

Charlie Curnow has established himself as the AFL’s best key forward, by several measures. SHANNON GILL and Champion Data unpack how the baton has been passed from Lance Franklin to the Carlton star.

Charlie Curnow has taken the baton of the AFL’s superstar forward from Lance Franklin. Picture: Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images

This has been a year of coronation. But forget that strange lot in oil’ blighty, our true King Charles has ascended on the football field.

As Lance Franklin retires, the crown of the generational key forward is passing before our eyes to Carlton spearhead Charlie Curnow.

The Blues’ finals-clinching game against Gold Coast was a perfect example. Curnow single-handedly dragged his team back into the game with four second-quarter goals then symbolically took the match-saving mark in the Suns’ goals square to ice the game in its final seconds.

Champion Data statistics reveal that not only is Curnow a fitting heir to Buddy’s throne, he’s at the vanguard of the quiet re-emergence of big key forwards kicking bags of goals.

Charlie Curnow kicks one of his five goals against Gold Coast. Picture: Albert Perez/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Coleman Curnow

Taylor Walker did kick ten goals against West Coast last time they played. But even with a repeat performance, he’d be hard-pressed to make up the nine goals needed to overtake Curnow and stop him winning a second straight Coleman medal.

By recent historical terms, Curnow is having some sort of season.

Sitting on 75 goals with a game to go, six goals from Curnow in the last round would make him the first player to score more than 80 goals in a home and away season since 2009.

Failing that, with at least one final up his sleeve, Curnow has a reasonable chance to boot eight more goals and make it the most prolific season – across home and away and finals games – for those same 14 years. The current mark is 82 goals from Franklin (2011) and Eagle Josh Kennedy (2016).

Yet goals are just indicative of his broader brilliance this year.

He is Champion Data’s highest rating key forward for the season with 15.4, averaging a clear two rating points per game more than nearest rival Walker.

This is consistent with his place in the league for so many of the key indicators for big forwards.

Charlie Curnow has posted a range of elite key forward numbers in 2023.

Curnow ranks first in goals per game, score involvements and marks among key forwards. He’s also second in contested marks and third in contested possessions and forward 50 marks.

Not only has he kicked goals, he’s been the sun that the rest of Carlton’s solar system has revolved around, and been nourished by.

Key forward Buddies

Lance Franklin has produced six of the best seven key forward seasons recorded by Champion Data. Picture: Colleen Petch.

The symbolism of Franklin retiring this year looms large. Because while they are different players, Curnow is the closest we’ve seen to having the Buddy effect for quite some time.

Curnow’s rating points (15.4) is the best by a key forward since Franklin in 2017.

Since Champion Data ratings points started in 2010, Curnow’s 2023 season numbers have been bettered seven times. Once by Adam Goodes in 2011, and a whopping five times by Franklin.

It underlines just how well rounded the forward line play of Franklin was and how goals were not the only measure of his brilliance. It also tells a story of the rarefied air Curnow is keeping.

Given that Goodes only spent a small period of his career as a key forward, its accurate to say that Curnow is the closest thing to Buddy we’ve seen for more than a decade.

Champion Data’s best rated key forward seasons since 2010.

The only knock on Curnow’s game this year, and you’d be a pedant of sorts to do this, is that he has scored a high proportion of his goals against lesser teams.

Ten goals and nine goals against West Coast have certainly fattened his haul, and since 1999 he has the lowest percentage of goals kicked against top-eight teams (30.67 per cent) for anyone that‘s bagged 70 for the season. Ironically, Franklin in 2016 was the previous lowest percentage.

To a degree that is dictated simply by Carlton’s draw where, at the time of writing, ten of his 22 games have been against top-eight teams.

But you can only kick goals against who you play, and anyone who saw him boot six against Collingwood a few weeks back will understand that this guy does not shrink from the moment.

That small criticism can be washed away by showing his true wares against the heavyweights in September.

Curnow crashes the pack in his matchwinning six goal performance against Collingwood. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Bags are back

The other great joy Curnow has been instrumental in this season has been a return to big bags of goals.

While those Eagles wins were blowouts, footy fans were glued to Curnow’s goalhunts to see just how many he could register.

We’re not back to the heady days of century goal kickers in a season, but there has been a clear shift. With one round left we’ve seen 20 bags of seven goals or more kicked, the first time that has happened since 2014.

Going back further, 2023 and 2014 are the only two seasons to have featured 20 bags of seven since 2008, when there were 31.

2023 has seen the most seven goal bags since 2014.

What was so special about 2008? Well that was the last time a player kicked a century of goals in a season and that was, you guessed it, Lance Franklin.

He kicked individual bags of seven on four occasions, and threw in five sets of six for good measure.

Box Office Buddy may be gone, but in 2023 the torch for best and most brilliant key forward in the game has been passed to King Charlie.

It’s in good hands.

Originally published as Champion Data: Stats show how Charlie Curnow is hitting Lance Franklin-like highs in superb AFL season