Lance Franklin quietly announced his retirement on Monday, a few weeks shy of the end of his 19th year in the league. His retirement one of the few things in football he seemed unable to control.
Nevertheless, he handled it with class and in good grace. Franklin is not a passive-aggressive nurser of hurts, nor is he one to seek outside affirmation. He is a footballer with nothing to prove, having achieved nearly every football accolade that matters. And more than that, on the field he was theatre.
He is, arguably, the greatest Australian rules footballer of our generation.
Jordan Lewis, who was drafted alongside Franklin in the 2004 AFL draft, described his former teammate as the best player he has seen and played with – a paragon of preternatural talent and preparation.
“Unless you’ve been up close to him and you realise the size of him [Franklin is listed as 199 centimetres – 6ft 6in in the old scale – and 102 kilograms], you realise players of that size shouldn’t be able to do the stuff he was able to do on the field,” Lewis said.
Lewis also named Franklin in the top five best trainers he has played with. “Competitiveness. Every drill he stepped into he was there to train.”
And for so long, Franklin appeared a man who could resist time. Up until Saturday night, there remained speculation of another year’s juice being squeezed. But just as time seems to speed as we age, so too does the body slow. Muscles (say, a calf) become more likely to tear and take longer (say, six-to-10 weeks) to repair.
What has long since passed is the return on investment Sydney gained after they purloined Buddy from the grasp of the Greater Western Sydney Giants with a nine-year, $10m contract at the end of the 2013 season.
While a premiership remained elusive, Franklin constantly cut through a tough Sydney market – from the time helicopters circled the SCG during his first training session, through to round four last year when Franklin became just the sixth VFL/AFL footballer to reach the 1,000-goal milestone, summoning what appeared to be every one of the 36,578 at the SCG to storm the ground – the like of which we may never see again.
And Franklin’s influence will hang around in Sydney’s bloodstream long after he’s gone.
Concerns around his fit in the Swans’ culture were misplaced. Everything he did felt in tune with the energies of his team, while always maintaining the air of a man who was justly aware of his full measure.
But he was also aware of his own frailty. In 2015, in just his second season at Sydney, Franklin courageously took leave from the game on the eve of the finals series to prioritise his mental health.
Franklin had long been the subject of baseless rumours emanating from the more unhinged corners of the internet, which didn’t exactly develop a sense of nuance or empathy when he missed a finals series in only his second season in Sydney.
Franklin, although by then inured to rumour, found the innuendo unpleasant, acknowledging to The Age that there was a lot of rumours that went around about him which he could not control.
“But I did feel sorry for my loved ones, my partner, my parents and the football club at that stage with the stuff that was getting thrown around,” he said. “But at the end of the day, for me it was just about getting myself right, getting on the front foot and getting the help I needed, and I was able to do that.”
The break helped Franklin get himself mentally and physically right for the 2016 season, but more importantly, helped normalise the conversation around mental health in a sport that once contained countless platitudes about sucking it up and getting on with it.
And that doesn’t make you a poor teammate, it makes you a great one. Sydney coach, John Longmire, said as much when announcing Franklin’s retirement to media on Monday.
“After coming to the Swans as a 26-year-old in the prime of his life, he leaves as one of our most loved players to run out in the red and white,” Longmire said. “Lance is also an extremely private and humble champion, which makes him even more endearing to those who know him.”
Franklin’s will be a football story told for generations, even if he doesn’t insist on telling it.
