Lance Franklin remembers.
“There‘s been a lot of knockers over the years, hasn’t there?” Franklin said this week when confirming he’d signed a one-year contract extension to extend his tenure at the Swans into a 10th season.
“When I first got here people were knocking that I wouldn‘t get there, I wouldn’t make it. I’d play for four or five years and that would be it.
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“So I‘ve definitely proved them wrong, haven’t I?”
Franklin has most certainly proven many wrong over the course of his nine-year, $10 million deal, but there remains one statistic any remaining doubters will point to in defending their view: Zero premierships as a Sydney Swans player.
The AFL‘s most revered No.23 announced his one-year extension in the same vein as the NBA’s most revered No.23 did his comeback ahead of 1995.
It‘d be fitting for Franklin to finish his mega-deal in the same way Jordan did his time at the Bulls, holding the silverware aloft and cementing a legacy as one of the greatest players of all time.
“From Buddy‘s perspective, he left Hawthorn and then they ended up winning another two flags,“ former Hawthorn star Ben Dixon told foxfooty.com.au.
“So this would be the exclamation mark to his career and his legacy on fulfilling a contract of nine years.
“Like, are you kidding me? To back yourself in like that and to do it and win in what could possibly be his last game, it would just be an incredible legacy.
“To get so far, look after yourself in terms of your body and prolong your career to a point where the final stage might be the curtain being drawn on some silverware, it’s pretty enormous.”
There‘s no denying a premiership would be the perfect capstone and cement the deal as arguably one of the savviest and most successful transactions of the modern era.
Even without one, however, it could well still fit the description above.
Over the course of his Swans tenure, he has been the side‘s leading goalkicker six times and will very likely make it seven barring an extraordinary finals haul from Isaac Heeney.
Add to that four All-Australian selections during his time there along with a grand final appearance and it‘s hard for anyone to say Franklin hasn’t delivered on his side of the deal.
All of this is without mentioning the enormous value Franklin has added to the Swans during his time there.
That value alone could well be worth the investment.
Lance Franklin‘s legacy is already assured.
A premiership at the Swans in the final game of his nine-year contract, however, would be a fitting – blockbuster to the very end.
