Part riot, part coronation: Lance Franklin milestone ignites SCG and caps joyful career

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Lance Franklin play football. Hawthorn was playing at the MCG and I was there under extreme sufferance. The Hawks were unspeakably bad that year. My eyes were glazing over when this beanpole of a second gamer suddenly swooped on a loose ball, shoved Brent Hartigan aside, gathered it one handed, and threaded a left foot goal from the forward pocket. It all happened in a tick over two seconds. He waltzed in and out of the stoppage like he owned the sport, like the MCG was his personal pond.

It was 17 years ago, almost to the day. It feels like yesterday. He was so raw. He was like one of those boom two-year-old colts you see in the mounting yard at the Golden Slipper. His eyes darted everywhere. He hadn’t grown into his body yet. He needed to be taught some racetrack manners. My inkling, I’m embarrassed to say, was that he’d never make it. I’d seen too many iridescent talents flash in and out of the sport. He’ll get bored, I thought. He’ll get battered. He’ll be reined in. He’ll be worked out.

Instead, he got better by the year. He was young, good looking, a joy to watch, and virtually impossible to counter. On Friday night, he kicked his 1,000th goal. It was a complete circus. Footy has never seen anything like it. We’ll almost certainly never see it again. The way the game is played these days, it’s hard to imagine anyone kicking 100 goals in a season again, let alone a thousand over a career. His ascent to the milestone has coincided with the predominance of team defence, which tends to render key forwards obsolete. You can’t compare him to the other men who topped the thousand. They were playing in different eras, in different positions. They may as well have been playing a