Coming into Indigenous round this week, it’s fascinating to revisit Buddy Franklin’s charge up the all-time goal-kicking ranks.
He needs just four more goals to move into the top ten and overtake Bernie Quinlan – and has every chance of nailing this feat on Friday night.
In fact, everything is set up perfectly – Sir Doug Nicholls round, Friday night lights, and against his old club Hawthorn.
I have been keeping tabs on his progress and touched on this briefly last year in an article on a similar theme.
Buddy has 27 goals this year from nine matches which is just a tad under his career average. I believe he will get to 60 by the conclusion of the season, so will factor in another 33 goals to get to 847 this year from the remaining 13 home-and-away matches.
(With the Swans’ poor start, I cannot see finals in 2017 despite their recent realisation the season has actually commenced).
Under his nine-year deal, after this year Buddy has another five seasons at the Swans, equating to 110 regular season matches.
Being the eternal optimist, I will include ten finals in that period to round out to 120 games.
I will factor in Franklin losing roughly a ”season’ (20 matches) to injuries/suspension as a cumulative measure – and thus estimate he will still manage close to another 100 matches in the red and white.
Coupled with a reduced output, from 2018 I predict he will realise 220 majors from these 100 games at an average of 2.2 per game (currently his career average stands at 3.18).
If this forecast is close to the mark, it will bring Buddy to a total of 1067 goals from around 365 career games. He will pass Gary Ablett and Doug Wade, to end up fourth overall behind Gordon Coventry, Jason Dunstall and Tony Lockett – not bad at all.
I will also suggest there won’t be anyone near this mark for a long time, perhaps forever with the way football has changed.
When you look at this current list of goal-kickers, there is no one close to even approaching these figures.
There are obviously some outstanding forwards, but at best the likes of Josh Kennedy, both the Riewoldts, and Jeremy Cameron will be looking at outputs to challenge the 750-800 goal mark by the end of their careers.
(AAP Image/David Moir)
Unless formalised zones or another way to curb the player crush is brought into the game in the future (who knows with the way the Laws of the Game Committee seemingly change everything every five minutes), Buddy will be a unique legend among legends – having mastered the art of scoring heavily, with consistently and longevity, despite the intricacies of flooding and zoning in the modern game.
In Sir Doug Nicholls round, designed to celebrate Indigenous players and culture, lets hope the game’s two exciting most exciting goal-kickers in both Buddy and Eddie Betts can light up the stage.
I believe Kevin Sheedy’s 2005 comments when introducing ‘Dreamtime at the G’ encapsulate what this round aims to promote.
“Anzac Day is a very spiritual day for this country, there is no doubt about that – where men and women lost their lives. But this is about building a country.
“It’s in another direction, the people who were here first, and the people who have come since. It’s whether you get your act together and have the great country we should have.”
This round also takes on extra significance this year with the 20th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home Report occurring this week, which extensively documented the experiences of the Stolen Generation members.
In the overall scheme of things football is obviously not the answer to reconciliation, but it can play a part.
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