When you put the name Franklin in the same sentence as Lockett, Coventry, Dunstall, Wade and Ablett there is no place for the word ‘better’. No need for mindless comparisons. There is no better than the best.

These six players are the leading goal-kickers in AFL history. The 1000-Goal Men. The five players in history who have reached this monumental milestone and Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin, will begin his 17^th season needing just five goals to join them.

It’s been a source of much anticipation over the summer. And it is growing daily.

Will it be Round 1 against GWS at the Olympic Stadium or Round 2 against Geelong at the SCG on Friday, March 25? Or will circumstances combine to stretch it out to Round 3, when the Swans travel to face the Western Bulldogs at Marvel Stadium.

Statistics say Franklin’s 1000^th goal will almost certainly come in the first three games of the season, injury notwithstanding.

After all, in 298 games and 15 years since his 2005 debut season, Franklin has only gone three games in a row without kicking a combined five goals five times. And his average three-game haul in that period is 9.85 goals.

There is little point trying to add to the Franklin narrative. The now 35-year-old from Dowrin, a town on the Western Australian wheatbelt 156km north-east of Perth with a population of 378, according to 2016 census, is already one of the most exciting players in the game’s history.

And it is impossible, too, to compare the dynamic Franklin with the likes of Tony Lockett, Gordon Coventry, Jason Dunstall, Doug Wade and Gary Ablett Sr who sit above him on the all-time goal-kicking table.

Simply, he’s an entirely different type of player. Nothing like the traditional kick-mark specialists of the early days, who relied heavily on their contested marking prowess through times when bags of 10-goals plus were a regular occurrence. ‘Bud’ is the supreme athlete who has extraordinary football capabilities.

It is unthinkable to ask how many of this sextet should be included in a notional Greatest AFL Team of all-time, if such a thing was to be considered. Even more so, who did you pick, and who do you leave out?

But as a very special moment in AFL history approaches it is possible and interesting to compare the key statistics of the 1000 Goal men.

* Coventry played before the introduction of possession counts, while Wade's first four seasons (1961-64) were before possession counts, so his possession statistics are for 1965-75 only. 

Of the League’s all-time leading goal-kickers, Wade was quickest to 100 goals (29 games) and 200 goals (57 games), Dunstall was quickest to 300, 400 and 500 goals, and Coventry has been quickest to every 100-game milestone thereafter.

This table shows how many games each player required to reach goal milestones from 100. So Lance Franklin was 49 games for his first 100 goals, 156 games to reach 500 goals and 284 games to 900 goals.

Lockett is the only member of the 1000-Goal Club to play as a 17-year-old, while Dunstall and Ablett were the oldest starters among the group, not making their debut until after their 20^th birthday. Franklin kicked 238 goals before his 22^nd birthday – second only to Lockett’s 412.

Whenever it comes, Franklin’s 1000^th goal will see that moment join five very special moments in AFL history.

Gordon Coventry – Monday June 4, 1934

The eighth of 10 children from suburban Diamond Creek in Melbourne, he was a 183cm key forward who had debuted at 18 in 1920. He was the first player to kick 100 goals in a season in 1929 and in 1930 became the League’s leading all-time goal-kicker when he went past 1920-22 Magpies teammate Dick Lee.

Then, in 1934, he became the first player to top 1000 AFL goals. Coming off his third ‘ton’ in 1933, he opened the season 8-5-6-5 and needed two when Collingwood journeyed down the highway to Geelong’s Corio Oval in Round 5.

Needing two goals to reach the historic milestone, he got them out of the way early and finished with four as Geelong, down by 28 points at quarter-time, fought back to eventually claim a draw.

Coventry went on to register his fourth century but had to be content with second spot on the goal-kicking table when South Melbourne’s Dick Pratt kicked a staggering 150 goals – a League match that was equalled by Hawthorn great Peter Hudson in 1971 and still stands today.

Doug Wade – Saturday September 7, 1973

Like Swans pair Adam Goodes and Jake Lloyd, the burly 188cm full forward hailed from Horsham in the Wimmera region of Victoria, 300km north-west of Melbourne. He trialled unsuccessfully with Melbourne in 1960 but joined Geelong in 1961 to become one of the AFL’s all-time great goal-kickers.

After 12 years and a 100-goal 1969 season with the Cats, he joined North Melbourne in 1973 under a new rule which gave players the right to move clubs without a clearance after 10 years’ service. It was a pre-cursor to free agency of today.

Wade was the League’s leading goal-kicker in his second season at North in 1974, and at the end of the home-and-away season he had 998 career goals. North had finished second on the ladder and played third-placed Hawthorn in the qualifying final at the MCG.

It wasn’t his biggest day, but in his 219^th game he managed the pair he needed to become the second player in AFL history to reach 1000. And the first post-war.

North kicked clear in the final quarter to win comfortably and three weeks later Wade kicked four goals in a grand final loss to Richmond to post the second 100-goal season of his career.

Tony Lockett – Sunday August 27, 1995

It was a rare, rare day. Not just one pitch invasion but two. And all because of ‘Plugger’.

An AFL debutant 38 days after his 17^th birthday, Lockett celebrated his 200^th AFL game in Round 20, 1995 with six goals against Adelaide. Six straight. A week earlier he kicked 16 goals straight against Fitzroy. And that after he’d opened with a behind against Brisbane in Round 18 before kicking six straight.

He went into his 201^st game against Fremantle at the SCG in Round 21 needing four goals to reach 100 goals for the fourth time in his career and, on a bigger scale, he needed six goals to reach 1000.

It was the Swans (12th) against the Dockers (14^th). Both had a 7-13 record. Astonishingly, Lockett was coming off 32 consecutive goals without a behind.

He kicked three behinds early as the visitors led by one point at quarter-time and 16 points at halftime. He got things together after the break to bring up his 1995 ‘ton’, prompting the first pitch invasion. And although Fremantle hung on to win by 17 points ‘Plugger’ kicked his sixth from 25m virtually straight in front late in the last term for 1000.

Commentators spoke of how ground authorities had hired extra security to oversee the pending milestones but had already noted after the first pitch invasion “it doesn’t seem to be working”.

Although officially the SCG crowd that day was only 10,410 it seemed like half of them charged onto the SCG again to celebrate with their hero when he kicked his 1000^th goal.

Lockett, in his first season in Sydney, finished with 7-4 from 13 kicks, and one Brownlow Medal vote as close friend Paul Kelly earned two votes for 26 possessions and a goal. Oddly, Fremantle’s Todd Ridley received the only three-vote rating of his 48-game career for 17 possessions and a goal.

Jason Dunstall – Sunday August 28, 1994

He was the homegrown Queenslander who, since 1985, has dealt football fans in the Sunshine State a massive dose of what could have been as he forged a wonderful career with Hawthorn.

Having played junior football at Coorparoo, five minutes from the Gabba, he found himself back ‘home’ in Round 23, 1994 to become the third player in AFL history to kick 1000 goals.

Having enjoyed 100-goal seasons in 1988-89-92-93 he went into the penultimate game of the ’94 home-and-away season needing just one goal against the then Brisbane Bears to become the third player to this monumental mark.

He didn’t take long. Receiving a nice pass from Shane Crawford at centre half forward, he shrugged off a post-mark ‘ear massage’ from opponent Richard Champion and, with blood just starting to trickle down his face, kicked truly from 48m for the first goal of the game.

Local fans charged onto the field to pay homage to the future Hall of Fame Legend, who finished with six goals in a Hawthorn win that got the Hawks into the final. He posted his fifth ‘ton’ a fortnight later with four goals in the first final.

Gary Ablett Sr – Saturday June 22, 1996

Having kicked 100 goals three years in a row and 11 goals in a grand final loss in 1995, the man they call ‘God’ went into the 1996 season needing 38 goals to become the fifth member of the 1000 Club.

He started 9-6 in Rounds 1-2 of what would be his final campaign but missed the next five weeks. After hauls of 3-9-4-5 in Rounds 8-9-10-11 he needed two goals as third-placed Geelong hosted 13^th-placed Fremantle at Kardinia Park.

It was expected to be straight-forward but Dockers fullback Stephen O’Reilly kept him in close check. It wasn’t until 23 minutes into the third stanza that he got there via a hurried snap from about 40m.

Predictably, play was held up for an extended period after Cats fans invaded the ground to celebrate what history now says was the 1001^st goal for the reclusive champion from Drouin in Gippsland.

The ‘extra’ goal, not credited to his tally until March 2019, was from his fourth game in 1992 with Hawthorn, where older brothers Geoff and Kevin were already playing. It was originally credited to teammate Richard Loveridge.

The error was discovered when football history enthusiast Stephen Wade was watching a YouTube video of the game, which had only been uploaded in April 2017. He referred the matter to AFL historian Col Hutcheson and quickly the records were amended.

So, Ablett, who played only one season and six games with the Hawks, had in fact kicked his 1000^th goal earlier in the same game against Fremantle in 1996, and his 1001^st was the one celebrated by a huge ground invasion by Geelong fans.