By Jon Pierik, Marc McGowan, Jake Niall and Michael Gleeson
Lance Franklin’s legendary AFL career effectively ended the moment he received the prognosis on his injured calf and picked up the phone to Sydney Swans coach John Longmire on Sunday night.
The footballer universally known as Buddy announced his retirement first to his Swans teammates and then to the world via Instagram on Monday, after 354 matches and 1066 goals, having “exhausted every last inch out of his mind and body”.
Longmire and Franklin’s first AFL coach, Alastair Clarkson, were among those who heaped praise on the superstar spearhead for his extraordinary goalkicking, his competitiveness and box office power.
Longmire said the 36-year-old called him on Sunday night to tell him he planned to retire after being told the calf injury he sustained against Essendon at Marvel Stadium on Saturday night would take six to eight weeks to recover. It was an inauspicious finish for such a great player.
Longmire visited the player’s house on Monday morning where Franklin reiterated his decision.
“I was going to ring him, but I was on a plane to come back to Sydney [on Sunday night],” Longmire said. “He rang me when I was sitting on the plane and he was pretty emotional and devastated that could be the way it finished. It certainly sounded like he’d made the call there and then.
Done: Lance Franklin has announced his retirement from the AFL.Credit: Getty
“I went to his place this morning, he had a good night’s sleep and he said the last time he had a calf injury like that in the same spot he missed 10 to 12 weeks. The best way to do it was to call it now.”
Longmire and Swans chief executive Tom Harley confirmed the news in a press conference on Monday, which the star forward opted not to attend. Franklin confirmed the news himself on Instagram a short while before then, posting: “What a journey. Thanks to everyone who has been on this crazy ride with me.”
Said Longmire: “He’s probably one of the most competitive people I’ve ever met. He’s extraordinary. He’s one of the all-time greats of Australian football.”
Franklin’s first AFL coach, Clarkson, who coached him at Hawthorn where he was part of the 2008 and 2013 premiership sides, said it was a testament to Franklin’s loyalty that over his nearly 20 year career he had only had two coaches.
“He retires an icon of the game, and a hero of two clubs that he helped make great in his time at each,” Clarkson said.
“His feats as a player are extraordinary, and this has run parallel to his emergence as a great husband, father and mate. He is selfless, humble, loyal and proud.
“He has set a current day watermark that I believe will be unsurpassed, and the game will miss his theatre and drawing power.
“I feel privileged to share some of his journey. I know his Hawks teammates feel exactly the same.”
Harley also said Franklin is “an icon of the AFL” who “will go down as one of the greatest players to ever play this game”.
“He really has been the player of his generation and transcended the game,” Harley said. “He will be enormously missed, but he goes knowing he’s exhausted every last inch of his mind and body.
“You can probably all appreciate how quickly this has moved. Lance’s immediate focus has been on his family first. We will all hear from Lance at the right time. He certainly knows the impact he’s had on not only Swans fans, but AFL fans and sports fans in general.”
Franklin will leave the Swans as one of the most decorated players in the history of the game, as one of only six players to kick more than 1000 goals in the VFL/AFL.
He is also the most recent player to kick more than 100 goals in a season; a feat he achieved at Hawthorn in the premiership year of 2008. He won two flags with the Hawks, and overall has eight All-Australian blazers, four Coleman medals, a Hawthorn best and fairest, and 12 club leading goalkicker trophies.
Franklin’s defection to the Swans as a free agent after the 2013 season stunned the AFL, given the expectation had been that he was joining the fledgling Greater Western Sydney.
In a move that led to the axing of the controversial cost of living allowance (COLA), Franklin signed a whopping nine-year, $10 million deal to join the 2012 premiers.
Franklin last year took aim at those critics that had doubted whether he would complete his nine-year deal.
“When I first got here, people were knocking that I wouldn’t get there, I wouldn’t make it, I would play for four or five years and that’d be it,” he said.
“I’ve definitely proved them wrong, haven’t I? There’s been a lot of knockers over the years, haven’t there?”
He inked a one-year contract extension leading into last year’s grand final, although he admitted at the time he had been close to retiring.
“Fifty-fifty to be honest. But as the year went on and I spoke to the people that I care about, the decision was made clear that I needed to go on and there was unfinished business,” Franklin said.
Longmire praised Franklin’s ability to keep the Swans perennial finals contenders during his time at the club, which is just two points outside the top eight after finding form in the second half of the season.
“I’m sure in the fullness of time he’ll look back on the last few weeks and think, ‘I was still playing pretty good’,” Longmire said. “I think that will give him some comfort.
“I got a bit of a sense of what we were in for at our first training session when we had a couple of helicopters circling above. I thought, ‘This is a bit different’.
“He brought a whole new generation of fans. When you’re going through certain phases of losing players, during that period you’ve got to try to keep being competitive. He helped us do that and helped up keep competitive. That’s always the most important thing from my perspective.”
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