‘What a journey’: Buddy Franklin announces immediate retirement after injuring his calf in final match

Lance Franklin, one of the AFL’s greatest players, has terrorised his last opposition backline.

The legendary Sydney and Hawthorn key forward has retired after injuring his calf in Saturday night’s win over Essendon.

Franklin went to the club to tell his teammates on Monday, but one of the game’s most marketable talents did not join a media conference in the afternoon fronted by coach John Longmire and club chief executive Tom Harley.

“Everyone would have loved to have Lance available — he just doesn’t like these situations,” Longmire said.

Longmire and Harley said that Franklin would eventually speak about his retirement.

Franklin, who won two premierships with the Hawks in 2008 and 2013, belongs in the conversation with Graham “Polly” Farmer and former Swans teammate Adam Goodes as the game’s greatest Indigenous player.

The 36-year-old is fourth on the VFL/AFL leading goalkickers list with 1,066 goals from his 354 games.

The last big highlight of Franklin’s career came last season when he kicked his 1,000th goal, sparking wild celebrations as fans thronged onto the SCG playing surface.

“What a journey. Thanks to everyone who has been on this crazy ride with me,” Franklin said in an Instagram post complete with a photo of him alongside his only two senior coaches, Hawthorn’s Alastair Clarkson and Longmire, taken after the 1,000-goal game.

Look back at how ABC readers and other Australians responded to this live moment.

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Franklin stunned the sport at the end of the 2013 season by signing a massive nine-year deal with the Swans.

He extended that deal by a year in grand final week last season, a few days before Geelong belted the Swans at the MCG.

The Swans managed him through this season as he played 13 games, including the last four in a row, prompting some speculation about whether he might try to keep playing next year.

But after nursing a knee injury through this season, Saturday night’s setback proved the last straw.

“Lance Franklin has been a wonderful player with this football club and in my opinion is the greatest forward of his generation,” Longmire said.

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“He is an absolute freak of nature and we have been lucky enough to have front row seats to one of the best ever to play.

“He is a massive competitor and a wonderful teammate.

“Lance is also an extremely private and humble champion, which makes him even more endearing to those who know him.”

While the Swans never won a flag with Franklin, “Buddy” was their main forward for three grand finals and his star quality gave them a significant boost in the tough Sydney market.

He was an eight-time All-Australian, most recently in 2018, when he was given the extra honour of captaincy.

Asked on stage at the All-Australian function what the skipper would tell his honorary team if they played, Franklin grinned and said “kick it to me”.

It was classic Franklin — a freakishly talented key forward who lit up the game with his on-field exploits.

At his peak, Franklin was unstoppable and his highlights feature some of the best goals in AFL history.

Franklin’s playing honours are elite and he will surely join Farmer as a legend in the Australian Football Hall Of Fame.

Along with the two flags and eight All-Australian selections, Franklin finished equal runner-up in the 2014 Brownlow Medal.

Buddy Franklin’s goals across his career

In his 18 seasons from 2005, Franklin was the club leading goalkicker 13 times — six at Hawthorn and seven at Sydney.

He is the most recent player to kick 100 games in a season, with 113 in 2008.

“It’s quite unique that over a 20-year career, Bud only had two coaches,” Clarkson said in a statement.

“It speaks of his loyalty, dedication and mateship that he retires an icon of the game, and a hero of two clubs that he helped make great in his time at each.

“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.”

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A couple at the centre of the Hawthorn racism review is considering taking legal action against the club, which they say “purposefully abandoned” them and “cruelly” dishonoured its public pledge of support after the scandal broke.

The couple’s lawyer, Judy Courtin, released a statement on Tuesday, which quoted the couple as saying they were “left sitting in our pain, re-traumatised and feeling blamed and invalidated”.

“We feel that Hawthorn and the AFL have attempted to wipe their hands clean of us, and worse, to blame us for what happened to us,” the couple said in the statement.

“They have publicly stated that they are supporting us, but in private, we feel torment at every turn. Often, we are obtaining information via the media.

“We feel abandoned by the very club that was promising to understand and address our hurt and trauma.

“Once again, we feel as though our voices are being silenced or controlled in processes that are not independent or safe. We are fearful, scared, intimidated and all of the feelings from the past are, once again, so familiar.”

Stating that it lacked independence, the couple previously refused to participate in the AFL-commissioned investigation that flowed from Hawthorn’s Cultural Safety Review, the latter of which sought to understand historical incidents of racism at the club.

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AFL announces terms of reference for Hawks investigation

Dr Courtin said the couple would now consider civil litigation and said their lives had been “turned upside down” by the affair.

Former club coaches Alastair Clarkson and Chris Fagan have denied any wrongdoing in relation to allegations made to the authors of the Hawthorn report.

After the scandal broke, the AFL claimed its investigative panel would reach findings by Christmas last year, but its progress has been slow.

Clarkson and Fagan are yet to be interviewed and few of the families to make allegations of mistreatment have been willing to participate.

In October, Dr Courtin told ABC Sport the AFL review lacked credibility.

“An inquiry that is paid for and established by the AFL, and absent of any input from my clients, is not and cannot be independent,” Dr Courtin said, adding that her clients “continue to be treated with disdain”.

The AFL said its investigation is ongoing.

“The AFL is committed to providing support for all, including those who have shared their experiences and those who have chosen not to be part of the investigation,” a statement read.

“Where appropriate we have offered this support through the legal representatives of the parties represented. That support continues.”

‘Forced to beg, cap in hand’

Dr Courtin said the couple had been “forced to beg, cap in hand” for counselling support after their alleged ordeal had become public knowledge, and that it took “nine weeks of pointless argument for the HFC [Hawthorn Football Club] to finally agree to pay for some counselling for our distressed client, which has, again, further exacerbated their sense of betrayal and mistreatment”.

“It was suggested that one of our clients obtain a referral from his GP for 10 publicly funded counselling sessions at no cost to the HFC,” Dr Courtin said in the statement.

“We immediately rejected this proposition. The ‘public’ did not bear the responsibility for the psychiatric harm of our client.

“Nor, as the club would (or should) well know, would Medicare cover the full cost of treatment by most psychologists.

“Such responsibility for the funding of the psychological treatments lay squarely, we say, with the HFC.”

Dr Courtin claimed Hawthorn chief executive Justin Reeves’s public statements of support had been “nothing more than virtue-signalling, hypocrisy and pretence”.

Reeves said in a statement: “Our focus has and will always be on the well-being of everyone involved. The Club has provided support to the family referred to by Judy Courtin. This includes agreeing to provide financial support for 30 counselling sessions to a counsellor of their choice. The club will continue to provide support for anyone that requires it, as we have previously committed.”

In a statement to ABC Sport, Dr Courtin said she had been “requesting support from the HFC since 30 September 2022”.

“The requisite support called for much more than funding for counselling. It was denied outright,” Dr Courtin said.

“If the HFC’s promise to provide ongoing support for our clients was genuine, the club would be on the front foot asking what it is that our clients need. That is, they would be making genuine offers of support.

“Instead, our clients are met with what are unnecessary legalistic and harmful obstacles.”

‘Their lives have been turned upside down’

In her statement, Dr Courtin said Hawthorn and the AFL’s handling of the affair had “re-traumatised” her clients, as had the leaking of their personal information.

“In two ordeals, a decade apart, [their] lives have been turned upside down by the HFC,” the statement said.

“Not only has the club not delivered on its promises of support for our clients from 6 months ago, its adversarial and legalistic course continues to augment the harm.

“Our clients, who took part in this ‘truth-telling’ review, allege additional and ongoing harm flowing from that report and, especially, its unauthorised publication.

“The leaked copy of the report included emails and testimonies of the participants, some of which described their panic, pain and desperation.

“These documents were marked ‘private and confidential’. Their publication served no public interest and only caused further trauma and continue to do so.”

The statement said Dr Courtin’s clients would not take part in the AFL’s investigation as it “cannot be independent”, and were instead looking into civil legal options.

“Our clients, feeling exposed, vulnerable and re-traumatised, were purposefully abandoned by the very club that was pledging to understand and address their hurt and trauma, all for the eventual betterment of the club,” the statement read.

“The irony here is alarming – having re-opened the wounds of its First Nations players and their families under the guise of bettering itself, HFC, in effect, sought to bury the traumas of its own creation.”

ABC Sport has contacted the AFL for comment.

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