A premiership aside, Swans fans will wait a long, long time for a moment as special as Lance Franklin’s 1000th AFL goal last year. It was everything and more, with thousands flooding onto the SCG and literally millions watching on television.
But this year the now 36-year-old maestro, who became the fifth AFL player to kick 1000 goals, could give us a moment even more unique in football history.
Franklin is 33 goals away from becoming the first player to kick 500 goals for two clubs.
It is feat that almost belies comprehension. Of 13,126 AFL players all-time just 49 have kicked 500 goals for one club. So 99.996% of AFL players have not done it.
And now ‘Buddy’ is on track to do it twice.
Averaging 3.07 goals per game overall through his 341-game career, Franklin has kicked 467 goals in 159 games for Sydney (2.93 goals per game) after 580 goals in 182 games for Hawthorn (3.19 goals per game).
Only three times in his career has Franklin not kicked 33 goals in a season – he kicked 21 in 2005, 31 in 2006 and 27 from 10 games in 2019, remembering he did not play a game in 2020.
Franklin is one of only two players to have kicked 400 goals for each of two clubs, having followed Tony Lockett, the League’s leading all-time goal-kicker who posted 898 goals for St Kilda and 462 goals for Sydney.
Bob Pratt (681) and Michael O’Loughlin (521) are the only Swans players to have kicked 500 goals for the club, which also has a link to the 500-Goal Club via coach John Longmire, who kicked 511 goals for North Melbourne.
Barry Hall, the Swans’ 2005 premiership captain, just missed the 500 Club. He kicked 467 in red and white to sit equal third with Franklin on the club goal-kicking list. Adam Goodes kicked 464 to head Lockett (462) and Bob Skilton (412).
Franklin, drafted from WAFL club Perth by Hawthorn with pick #5 in the 2004 Draft, is going into his 19th AFL season – a mark bettered by only six players in history.
Essendon 400-gamer Dustin Fletcher played 23 seasons to head the list from North Melbourne’s AFL games record-holder Brent Harvey and St Kilda’s Robert Harvey (21), and Western Bulldogs warhorse Ted Whitten, Hawthorn’s Michael Tuck and Port/Hawthorn utility Shaun Burgoyne (20).
Now the longest-serving player in the competition this year following the retirement of Fremantle’s David Mundy, Franklin will equal the 19-season mark of Gary Ablett Jr (Geelong/Gold Coast), Jack Dyer and Kevin Bartlett (Richmond), Dick Reynolds and Simon Madden (Essendon), Paul Salmon (Essendon/Hawthorn) and Roger Merrett (Essendon/Brisbane).
Adam Goodes holds the Swans record at 17 seasons.
In further testament to the Franklin durability, and the wisdom of his original 10-year Sydney contract, the dynamic #23 goes into the 2023 season as the ninth-oldest Swans player.
Having topped Barry Round in the finals last year, he will go past Rod Carter, John Rantall, Goodes and Jack Bisset with his first outing this year, and in Round 9 is set to topple Lockett (36 years 98 days) to become the fourth-oldest. This would see him the oldest Swan in 100 years, and behind only Bill Fraser (37/53 in 1904), Arthur Hiskins (37/27 in 1923) and Bill Windley (37/15 in 1905).
Having worn his beloved jumper #23 a total of 320 times, Franklin needs 20 more games to reach the AFL record for #23 of 340, held by Adelaide’s Andrew McLeod.
Franklin played his first 20 games for Hawthorn in 2005 wearing #38 and has worn #23 every game since for Hawthorn and Sydney except Round 10 in 2017, when he wore #67 to recognise the 1967 referendum at which Indigenous Australians were included in the census for the first time.
Franklin already has the AFL record for most goals kicked in #23 at 1021. He is 187 ahead of Doug Wade, who played 208 games in #23 for Geelong but wore #2 in his last 59 games at North Melbourne.
The Sydney Swans will kick off the season with an away game against the Gold Coast Suns, before returning to the SCG for our first home game, a Sunday afternoon clash with Hawthorn.
The team will be announced via sydneyswans.com.au and our social media channels at 6:20pm, Thursday, March 16.
Click here to view the Match Day Hub.
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