If his seven-goal haul against the Crows in the 2007 elimination final was the day Lance Franklin arrived as an AFL star — his eight-goal haul against the Bulldogs in the qualifying final the following year was proof he’d become an unstoppable force.

Hawthorn smacked Rodney Eade’s team from siren to siren on a Friday night at the MCG and Franklin — who entered the finals series after a kicking a ton in the minor round — bagged eight goals in the 51-point win that started the Hawks’ march to the flag.

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Teammate Campbell Brown has revealed a Herald Sun back page story on Dogs defender Dale Morris with the headline “Hey Buddy, Get Ready To … Meet Your Marker” had inspired Franklin’s performance.

“I was having coffee with him on the Friday morning before the first qualifying final against the Western Bulldogs,” Campbell said on the In The Game podcast.

“And Dale Morris, who everyone loves, he did a big double-page spread (in the paper) that morning. He had the hoodie on, it said ‘I don’t fear Franklin’, who’d just kicked 100 goals and was the main man.

“It was a great article for Dale and he’s a great player. But I was sitting there having coffee and — this is how cocky we were as a group back then, myself, Roughy (Jarryd Roughead), Jordan (Lewis) — he read the article and Buddy goes, ‘I’ll drop eight on him tonight’, with a smirk but being deadly serious. Like, how dare he say he doesn’t fear me.

“And we laughed. Who in their right mind goes into a qualifying final thinking they’ll kick eight, for starters? You’d be happy with eight kicks.

“Sure enough, and they weren’t all on Dale, Brian Lake copped it for a bit, but he kicked eight that night. And they were unbelievable goals. In the air, wheeling around from 60m, on the deck, the complete game.

“I was thinking, wow, he genuinely took offence that a defender said he was going to play well on him. That was Buddy and that was our mindset leading into 2008. He said, ‘I told you I would. I’m a man of my word’.”