Lance Franklin retirement: Teenage Buddy‘s impact was so profound he had WA coaches turning on each other

The year was 2004, the venue was Hale School’s football oval and Hale were playing host to Wesley. I had a couple of reasons for going to watch a game of footy that day.

I had a nephew, Ryan, who was playing for Wesley. And I had heard that West Coast were almost certain to take Mitch Morton, who played for Hale, as a father-son pick in the draft.

They were the reasons I headed to the game.

Lance Franklin was the reason I will always remember it. Actually, I should say Buddy Franklin – that’s all anyone called him – and I didn’t figure out his first name was Lance until some time later.

In 2023, Franklin is listed in the AFL season guide at 199 centimetres and in 2004, aged 17, he was already listed at around 196 centimetres.

He was long, skinny and rangy. But he moved with the speed of someone more powerful and compact – as if he had some better quality of energy source powering his long limbs.

This, combined with ball skills which were already advanced beyond the other kids out there, gave the impression that he was on the same field but playing a different sport to all teammates and competitors.

He took a ball out of the air at a boundary throw about 30 metres down from me and wheeled away from tacklers at a speed you just didn’t see from kids of that size, and a balance you rarely saw from kids of any size, let alone one growing into a seemingly gangly body. He then kicked it, still moving at pace, as an AFL player would have kicked it.

I turned to the bloke standing next me who was wearing Wesley colours. The censored version: “Who the hell was that?”

“That’s Buddy. Buddy Franklin”, came the reply.

Former East Perth forward Brent Levitzke – a good WAFL player in his own right and a left footer like Franklin but, by his own admission, bearing no other athletic resemblance – was coaching Wesley that year.

He remembers having a similar first reaction.

“I went out to training having heard about this kid Buddy Franklin,” he recalled. “It was jaw dropping. He picked up the ball on the wing, one bounce … goal.”

“I thought, ‘Nah nah, who did that? Where did that come from?’

“It was amazing to watch the raw talent, the skill with that left foot … and the speed … and the package. There was something that was unique to him. The legs would go, his motor would go and it was somehow co-ordinated to kick a 60 metre drop punt. Dangerous.

“Obviously at this point there were recruiters jumping around us all over the shop. We knew we had something special. He was out of the ordinary. Once he got out on the field he was full of confidence. Ball in front of him. Get ball. Damage.

“It just came out as natural talent. An ability to demolish teams. To do what he needed to do.”

The state under 18s coach at the time was former Fremantle football manager Gerard McNeill, who had seen Franklin playing Colts at Perth as a 16 year-old and had wanted to play him in the national 18s championships that year. He was told he wasn’t allowed to.

Asked if he had ever coached a better teenage athlete than Franklin, McNeill said he had probably never seen one. But he admitted to having teething problems with the mercurial teenager when he coached him in his draft year in the carnival in Victoria.

It came to a head in a game against one of the Victorian teams at Geelong.

“He was so used to being a freewheeler and he was good at it,” McNeill said. “The infamous story amongst my coaching buddies was that I found it hard to get him to play defensively at times. I took him off the ground in a game down at Geelong against Vic Metro from memory.

“I wasn’t keen to put him back on the ground in the last quarter and my assistant coaches, Kevin Bryant in particular, bashed me round the head and said, ‘Put him back on the ground, you dickhead!’ So we did and he won the game.

“I was one of those frustrated coaches thinking I was doing the right thing until one of my sensible assistants said, ‘You have got a matchwinner there, don’t leave him on the bench.’

“I remember his dad coming up to me in the post carnival debrief we used to do with parents. Big Lance Senior came up and he was a scary looking fella and I thought he was going to have a crack at me for taking his boy off the ground. But he said thanks for at least trying to get him to run the other way.

“Did I ever coach a better athlete? I don’t think I ever saw one as a 16 year-old.”

Asked to nominate his favourite tall forward during his time as a state under 18s coach, McNeill nominates Josh Kennedy, because Kennedy was more coachable, but says Franklin always had a penchant for a big moment.

Levitzke, though, said no player had given him more enjoyment over the years than Buddy.

“I would have to put him in my top five, with Ablett senior and Polly and players like that,” he said. “I am turning 70 now and so I spread the years over all the players I have watched but for that time, his period of time – Buddy was the most exciting.

“I will certainly miss that expectation of things happening to win games for his team.”

Graham “Polly” Farmer is regarded as WA footy’s King. He changed the game, had success and took premiership success with him everywhere he went from East Perth to Geelong and back to West Perth.

But there is a strong argument that only Farmer has claims on being better than Franklin among all Sandgropers. Franklin was a dual-premiership player at Hawthorn in three grand finals and a three time grand finalist at Sydney.

His 113 goal season at Hawthorn 15 years ago is the last time any player kicked the century in the era of zone and press defences clogging forward lines and reducing scoring.

Of modern day players, his 1066 goals sits 284 goals clear of Richmond’s Jack Riewoldt and 287 clear of Geelong’s Tom Hawkins.

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