Opinion: Ashley Browne

What I’m thinking

with Ashley Browne

Blooming hell, Buddy about to burst

A rare goalkicking milestone beckons for one of the AFL’s all-time greats.

Season 2022 is underway and so is ‘Buddy Watch’.

Lance Franklin needs just five goals to become only the sixth player in League history to kick 1000 in his career.

Only Tony Lockett (1360), Gordon Coventry (1299), Jason Dunstall (1254), Doug Wade (1057) and Gary Ablett snr (1031) have kicked more than Franklin.

Buddy Watch starts late Saturday afternoon at Accor Stadium in a shrewd piece of fixturing by the AFL as the Swans ‘visit’ the GWS Giants.

It is the first game at what footy fans remember variously as Stadium Australia, Telstra Stadium and ANZ Stadium since the fiery Swans-Giants elimination final in 2016.

Franklin was supposed to be a Giant. All through 2013, when it became increasingly clear he would not be continuing with Hawthorn, the expectation was that Franklin would be the boom recruit for the AFL’s fledgling outfit the following season.

The AFL hoped so. The Giants certainly thought so.

It was GWS which broke the news that he would be signing with Sydney in a media release announcing its pursuit of Franklin was over, and it contained more than a touch of anger.

The Giants felt they had been played by Franklin and his management and, indirectly, by the Swans.

Somewhere on a hard drive at Giants HQ can be found all the Franklin-focused marketing material the club was ready to unleash the moment the club won his signature. There was plenty of it.

So for the push for those elusive five goals to resume in a Sydney derby is a grand idea.

It’s a Giants’ home game, but as is usually the case whenever and wherever the Swans and Giants meet, the crowd will be predominantly clad in red and white.

Will they leave disappointed?

Franklin’s career goals average is 3.13 a game and in 2021 that dipped to 2.83.

Nevertheless, he kicked five or more on three occasions last season and one of those came against Giants.

He also kicked four against GWS in the return game and three in the elimination final.

It is not out of the question the milestone will come this weekend, but the stronger likelihood is that it will happen next Friday

BUDDY WATCH: All eyes will be on Lance Franklin in round one as the champion Swan and former Hawk (below, after kicking his 100th goal for the season in 2008) chases the five goals he needs to crack the 1000 mark. night when Sydney hosts Geelong at the SCG.

The Cats are an interesting choice of opponent, but the AFL could have done better.

Surely Hawthorn, his former club, would have been more appropriate and, failing that, Essendon, the team he has tormented more than any other.

Hawk fans, whose relationship with Franklin these days could best be described as “complicated”, will probably enjoy the hapless Cats looking on amid all the hoopla once Franklin kicks his 1000th.

And if for some reason he starts the year quietly, another primetime opportunity awaits him in round three – a Thursday night clash with the Western Bulldogs at Marvel Stadium.

No arguments here, with the AFL wanting to maximise the chances that he reaches the milestone in front of the largest audience possible.

But surely the MCG, where his 3.21 goal average is the highest of any venue he has played at on at least 10 occasions, would have made for a grander stage.

Whatever the case, until Franklin kicks his 1000th goal, Sydney games will be mandatory viewing.

The guy is a freak, the third-oldest player in the competition and the only active player from the 2004 National Draft.

Jack Riewoldt (715), Josh Kennedy (686) and Tom Hawkins (665) have perhaps a year or two remaining, so they won’t get there. Jeremy Cameron (466) might catch them, but will need several injury-free seasons.

As Alastair Clarkson recently noted, football is being increasingly skewed towards defenders. Getting a kick as a key forward is as hard as it has ever been. When Coleman medallists are kicking between 58 and 80 goals a season, not only is there little danger of any player cracking the ton – Franklin was the last to do so in 2008 while still a Hawk – if there is another 1000-goal AFL player, chances are he or she hasn’t been born yet. Which makes what Franklin is about to achieve all the more special. Clear your schedule and take the trouble to watch it because, in all likelihood, you will never see it happen again.