Three years ago, Lance Franklin joined the Sydney Swans as a restricted free agent. A nine-year, $10 million deal that set off a chain of events that continues to unfold today. One-third of the way into the deal, what’s happened?

Five teams were caught in the direct crossfire. Franklin’s decision to move east of Sydney’s CBD rather than west pulled Sydney, Greater Western Sydney, Hawthorn, St Kilda and Carlton into a nexus of transactions of varying sizes. The full scale of the flow on effects of his move are beyond analysis for now.

Franklin’s deal has another six years to run – we’re at roughly the one-third mark as of the end of the 2016 season. It seems an opportune time to see what happened, and what looks likely to happen going forward.

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You know how the story goes

Lance Franklin was supposed to be a Giant; at least that’s what all of the mail suggested in the weeks leading into 2013 free agency. Greater Western Sydney had just finished their second season in the AFL, with a solitary win from 22 outings.

Their entry into the league was always going to be rough, but three wins from 44 games was like sandpaper on an AFL House meeting room chalkboard.

Franklin was the man to help turn that all around. The Giants were losing in part because they were extremely, deliberately, young. It was meant to be a slow burn, culminating in the development of a core group of blue chippers that would peak around six or seven years into the team’s existence.

Adding arguably the highest profile player in the league would make the intermittent period between dominated and dominating more attractive.

Plus, Franklin was one year into his prime and his position at the top of the forward line pecking order was beyond dispute. He was a premiership success insurance policy; a pricey policy, but one that could erase the risk of failure to near-zero.

So it was, a six-year, $7.2 million offer was reportedly tabled. Then on the first day of free agency, this happened.



The Sydney Swans have reportedly joined the race for the signature of Lance Franklin, with a $7m, five-year offer: http://t.co/rgDZjX29bm — ABC Grandstand (@abcgrandstand) October 1, 2013

GWS withdraw offer for Buddy Franklin saying he is expected go to Sydney Swans http://t.co/tPW9LcqISl — The Age (@theage) October 1, 2013

The @sydneyswans can confirm an offer has been made to Lance Franklin's management. Full statement – http://t.co/9ke2KN1O0g — Sydney Swans (@sydneyswans) October 1, 2013



The AFL has approved Sydney’s monster deal for Lance Franklin. Hawthorn now has 3 days to match the offer (yeah, right) #Buddy #AFLTrades — Matt Smithson (@mattsmithson) October 8, 2013

The Club will NOT match the offer from Sydney Swans to Lance Franklin: http://t.co/T4gmvCQ4YW #ALWAYS #gohawks — Hawthorn FC (@HawthornFC) October 8, 2013

It set off a chain of events that continues to reveal itself.

That chart shows the transactions which occurred as a direct, traceable result of Franklin’s move north. Three teams over and above the Hawks and Swans got in on the act; Carlton, GWS and St Kilda.

The direct dealings are much easier to parse than the indirect, but let’s give it a go. Who is winning the Lance Franklin deal, three years in?



We will go club by club, reserving most of the discussion for the two teams at the centre of the transaction: Hawthorn and Sydney.

The Carlton Blues

The 2013 off-season was a tumultuous time for the Blues. The club was a year into the Mick Malthouse era and had just won an elimination final after the AFL’s punishment of Essendon in response to their performance enhancing drug triste pushed the 11-11 team into eighth spot.

Did it create false hope that the team was on the cusp of a more sustained run at finals and a flag? Perhaps – but that’s another story for another time.

Carlton had made good on a free agent deal of their own. Dale Thomas joined from Collingwood on a five-year, $4 million deal, which has two more years to run. It was a clear signal of intent; it was time to go for it.

The Blues joined in the Franklin party via a pick swaps with the Swans, trading their second round pick (number 32) for Sydney’s third round pick (39) and Andrejs Everitt. Everitt was almost certainly surplus to requirements as a forward now Franklin had joined, and Carlton’s key forward group wasn’t bursting at the seams with depth.

So the deal was done.

Per the chart, Carlton went on to select ruckman Cameron Giles, who never played a game and was delisted in 2015, while the Swans selected the everything-and-nothing George Hewett. Between picks 32 and 39 of the 2013 draft, the only player of note taken was Fremantle’s Alex Pearce. The Blues didn’t gain anything from the picks, but they didn’t really lose anything either.

But they did gain Everitt, who played 52 games and kicked 61 goals in the navy blue, leading the team’s goal kicking in 2015. When the deal was done, the Blues were looking for a ready-made player who could kick goals, which is what they got in Everitt.



There’s no fault here, particularly given we’re in a position where almost every player taken between pick 32 and 39 is now playing for Brisbane, or not playing at all.

Carlton did just fine.

The St Kilda Saints

At this point, we have to assume that St Kilda chief operating officer (he was St Kilda’s list manager in 2013) Ameet Bains has Emmett Brown’s phone number. Bains has knocked practically every big decision out of the park during the Saints’ current build, as his involvement in the Franklin deal epitomises.

The 2013 season was an extremely ordinary one for St Kilda. They finished 16th with five wins, ahead of the Demons and Giants on two and one wins respectively. Yet the Saints had the sixth-oldest and fourth most experienced list in the competition.

St Kilda was at the very tail end of their most successful era in decades, had a newish head coach in Scott Watters, and a list that, while pruned, still needed a dose of the chainsaw before it could grow again.

That appears to have been catalyst behind the demise of Watters, who had continued down the path set by former Saint mentor Ross Lyon in prioritising experience over youth.

The cleanout began in earnest. Nick Dal Santo left as a free agent (Brendon Goddard had departed the year prior), and Bains was able to Jedi mind trick his was into the Franklin deal with a savvy, forward-looking trade.

Hawthorn’s list was in its usual pristine condition – even without Franklin – in every position except one: the ruck. At the end of the 2013 season, the Hawks were rocking a set headlined by the rapidly ageing David Hale, always-injured Max Bailey, and three zero gamers in Luke Lowden, Sam Grimley and the rookie-listed Jonathon Ceglar. St Kilda’s Ben McEvoy, 23 years old and with 91 games under his belt, was the perfect fit for their particular need.



The Saints had McEvoy, Rhys Stanley and Tom Hickey, in addition to draftees Lewis Pierce and Jay Lever. McEvoy was the clear number one and a valuable asset in his own right. Bains and packaged him up with their second (number 24) and fourth round (59) picks in a trade to Hawthorn for their first round pick (18), their compensation pick (19) received for Franklin, and the dropped-for-the-finals 22-year-old Shane Savage.

With those pick upgrades, the Saints selected Luke Dunstan and Blake Acres, in what looks now to be a ridiculously loaded 2013 draft. There aren’t many players better than Dunstan and Acres that were taken after pick 19 – Zach Merrett (taken at pick 26), Rory Lobb (29) are ahead of them, but after that it’s eye-of-the-beholder stuff.

Towards the end of the trade period, they also picked up Billy Longer from Brisbane, who after spending 2015 as the team’s primary ruckman fell behind Hickey and now finds himself in the backup slot.

2013 was also the year the Saints picked up Josh Bruce from GWS for nothing (pick 48, which the Giants didn’t use), and drafted Maverick Weller as a rookie after he was delisted from the Suns.

A further flow on benefit to the Saints, picked up by The Roar’s own Cam Rose, was Tim Membrey deciding to leave the Swans after Franklin’s first season, due to a lack of opportunity. His destination? Seaford.

St Kilda did just fine, too. In fact, they did extremely well.

The Greater Western Sydney Giants

For months the story’s central protagonist, the Giants’ direct role in the Franklin deal turned out to be somewhat limited. The Giants traded pick 39 – their third round pick – for Sydney premiership ruckman Shane Mumford.



It’s difficult to say definitively, but the buzz around the time of the deal was Mumford was a salary cap casualty – paying Kurt Tippett and Franklin a combined average of just under $2 million a season left little room for a quality ruckman of Mumford’s ilk.

The timing has worked out beautifully for him in the end; coming off contract at a time when the Giants were in need of a reliable stoppage option meant the match was perfect.

I once likened Mumford to the bodyguard of a boy band, such was the role he played as an enforcer around the ground during the Giants’ 2014 and 2015 seasons. Now, with the Giants set to really hit their straps, Mumford can focus on his primary role in the team. Knocking guys around is now more of a workplace perk.

It is worth considering the Franklin “what if” here. While the Giants didn’t get their man, that they didn’t has contributed meaningfully to the situation the fledgeling franchise now finds itself in.

Consider that getting Franklin would have meant no Mumford, which in itself would have reshaped the Giants’ list strategy.

But missing Mumford would have also condemned 2013 draftee Rory Lobb to a premature death against the biggest, baddest ruck units in the competition. Mumford’s ability to carry the bulk of the ruck load has allowed Lobb to ease into the game, and now he looks like a monster himself.

Consider Franklin would have eaten up $1.2 million of the Giants’ salary cap each year for the past three years, and a further $1.2 million per year for the next three years.

Western Sydney’s salary cap situation is already tight, according to reports. The club’s drive for quality veterans to buttress its blue chip young talent, combined with an early removal of entry concessions, have left it with nary a penny to spare.



The Giants have already let go half a team’s worth of A+ to B+ talent in recent years – imagine the situation with more than one-tenth of the salary cap owed to Franklin.

Indeed, there is no way known the Giants would have made a play for Brett Deledio in this trade period with that kind of money already spent. Steve Johnson may not have been able to join in the Giants’ party, either. The debate in the 2017 off-season wouldn’t be which one of Josh Kelly or Dylan Shiel will leave; both would be on the table.

Consider that Franklin would have locked down the centre half forward position from 2014 onwards. That would have nixed any chance of Cam McCarthy’s breakout 2014 season, which has ended up yielding them – and trust me on this because I don’t have the space to spell it out – Tim Tarranto as well as the best of their academy talent in this year’s draft.

There are positive counterfactuals to be had here too.

Franklin may have squeezed Jonathon Patton out of the Giants’ forward line permanently, resulting in him becoming a key defender (probably the thinnest spot on the Giants’ list). Patton showed an excellent ability to read the play in his stints down back this season.

By the same token, Franklin would have almost certainly made the Giants’ forward line the most potent unit in the league. It isn’t exactly sparse without him, but an extra goal or two a game is always useful.

It’s difficult to assess this, given the stark contrast between realities. The Giants would probably have been a great team with Franklin, just a different kind of great team. They are doubtlessly happy with how things have turned out, even if they didn’t get precisely what they wanted back in the 2013 off-season.



The Sydney Swans

As far as the direct dealings go, Sydney’s actions post the Franklin deal are probably a nil-all draw. They lost Andrejs Everitt, who wouldn’t have been a regular in their side with both Franklin and Kurt Tippet available, while George Hewett is a decent replacement level player. The focus here, naturally, is Franklin’s impact on the team.

Franklin joined the Swans and made an immediate difference to the Sydney side. His contract may have been large (and it’s still large, given the new salary cap arrangements continue to be negotiated) but his 2014 season was larger.

Number 23 helped power Sydney to the minor premiership, their first since 1996, winning his third Coleman medal in a 67-goal campaign. He booted four goals a game during Sydney’s three finals and was the only player to enhance his reputation in their disastrous grand final.

I’ve always thought 2014 was Franklin’s best season. Kicking 79 goals in 22 games with all of the weight of expectation is immense.

Franklin averaged 9.3 score involvements per game, revolutionising Sydney’s attack which has historically centred on goal-kicking midfielders. He finished equal-third in the Brownlow Medal count despite the historic difficulty of winning votes at Sydney given the star-studded midfield.

Franklin had formed a deadly potent forward 50 duo with fellow blue-chip recruit Kurt Tippett; in the 20 or so games the two played together as forwards in 2014 and 2015, the Swans scored an extra three goals per game compared to when one or both of them were missing.

Circumstances have meant Tippett now plies his trade as the league’s most effective ruck-forward; we still get to see the chaos for 15 minutes or so a game.

There is no doubt adding Franklin meaningfully boosted Sydney’s scoring potency. For so long, the Swans were stodgy and slow and defensive; he helped accelerate Sydney’s transition to fast football to no end.



But the Franklin deal has come at a significant cost to Sydney, over and above Franklin’s $1.2 million salary.

Sydney won the 2012 flag, finished up in the preliminary final round in 2013, and managed to pick up two of the best available players in consecutive off seasons. There is nothing wrong with this of course – the AFL investigated both deals and found Sydney were compliant.

That didn’t stop HQ from commencing the roll back of Sydney’s cost of living allowance almost immediately. When the Swans refused the “immediate” time frame imposed on them by the AFL Commission, the masters of the AFL universe reacted by slapping a trade ban on the team.

The precise definition was Sydney were unable to bring in a player through a trade or free agency for two off-seasons (2014 and 2015), with the cost of living allowance to be abolished from the 2016 season onwards.

Sydney’s ban was softened in 2015, with the team able to bring in one player on the average non-draft contract salary if they so chose.

Like Carlton’s false dawn, that’s a story in itself which we won’t explore here. COLA was probably on its last legs anyway, but the potentially orderly transition to an equal salary cap across the competition was made far more disorderly and nasty.

This, plus Franklin’s salary (and we can add Tippett’s deal in here too), has led the Swans down an alternate path: youth.



For much of their existence, the Swans were a team built on mature aged players. It was partly by design: in a competitive market, there’s no room to bottom out less Sydney-siders move on to the next shiny object.

Part of it was also due to the success of this strategy, meaning the Swans almost never picked high in the draft. Between 2005 and 2010, the Swans had just five picks inside the top 20 of the draft, instead using the rookie list and trades for honest footballers to supplement their core midfield-driven list.

No more. Sydney had the 12th-oldest list in 2016, with just four players aged 30 or older in the year. They’ve dropped even further in 2017, with the 16th oldest (or third youngest) list in the game.

The Swans have 19 players on their list who were either drafted this season or were in their first or second years on an AFL list in 2016.

Like the former mature aged recruit strategy, Sydney’s newfound desire for young guys is driven in part by necessity. Under the former-but-still-current AFL collective bargaining agreement (CBA), players in their first two years on an AFL list are on fixed salary bands based on where they were drafted – the vast majority of players will ply their trade in the first two seasons for less than one per cent of the salary cap.

Getting young is a useful safety valve for cap-constrained teams. By having close to half of their list on draft contracts, the Swans have managed to keep it all together despite the onerous nature of Franklin and Tippett’s contracts.

With the new AFL CBA likely to see the salary cap head towards $17 million per season (plus marketing agreements of at least $1 million per season), it is likely the Swans have already navigated the tricky period of Franklin’s contract from a list management point of view.

Not every team can do this, of course. Sydney have managed to uncover two superstar players who are playing central roles in their team: Isaac Heeney (drafted in 2014) and Callum Mills (2015). Heeney was paid around $200,000 for his 2016 season, while Mills was closer to $140,000, despite both playing at a very high level. That helps to no end.



For Sydney, it is hard to argue with the results. Since Franklin joined, the team has won 17 games, 16 games and 17 games, finished on top of the ladder twice, made it to the preliminary final round every year, made two grand finals, and solidified their status as one of Australia’s leading sports organisations.

To the extent one player can influence matters in a sport where there are 36 players on the field, Franklin is likely to have been a driver of a lot of this.

It’s tempting to say Sydney hasn’t won a premiership with Franklin, but that is far too simplistic. The Swans are a better football team with Franklin than without him and can expect to be so for a few years yet.

Six? We’ll see.

The Hawthorn Hawks

Finally, the Hawks, who lost Franklin to one of their biggest rivals, gaining a top of band compensation pick (pick 19, given the Hawks won the premiership in 2013) in return. As above, they flipped that pick along with their regular first round pick and Shane Savage for Ben McEvoy and some later picks (24 and 59).

Hawthorn picked Billy Hartung with pick 24 and used pick 59 to upgrade Jonathon Ceglar to their full list. Hartung has played 45 games in his three seasons, while Ceglar was beginning to emerge as a viable 50/50 ruck option with McEvoy before injuring his ACL late this season. These are fine outcomes.

Given the Hawks were never really an option for Franklin, the package they managed to swing – effectively Hartung and McEvoy – is a decent return. But like the Giants and Swans, where it gets interesting for Hawthorn is the flow on effects.

For much of the 2013 season, the talk of the town was how ‘Buddy conscious’ Hawthorn had become as their superstar grew into his shoes.



It is a reasonable concern; Franklin had directly kicked or assisted one out of every five of Hawthorn’s points in each season from 2007 to 2012, including 31 per cent of the Hawks’ season points total in his 113-goal, 88-behind 2008 campaign.

In his final year at Hawthorn, Franklin kicked and assisted just 17 per cent of the Hawks’ points – the lowest mark since 2006.

This is relevant because it points to one of the biggest flow on impacts from the Franklin deal; the prospect of losing Franklin, and then actually losing him, created the conditions for Alastair Clarkson to shift his scheming into overdrive.

Whether it was the public pressure, the internal analysis, or some combination of the two (or something else altogether), Hawthorn’s flexibility has become the trend that every club is chasing.

It began to take shape in 2011, when the then-rookie listed Luke Breust and traded-in Jack Gunston began to get regular game time. The duo played high, leaving Franklin, Jarryd Roughead and Cyril Rioli to play deep in a more traditional forward line set up. With Paul Puopolo, drafted in 2010, Clarkson spun the magnets and turned a potent group into a near-unstoppable force.

It doesn’t necessarily show up on Hawthorn’s scoring metrics. The Hawks booted 112.3 points per game in Franklin’s last season, with their score per game dropping every year since.

There hasn’t been a precipitous decline – falling by half a point and 2.1 points in 2014 and 2015, before a more hefty 13.8-point decline in 2016 – but it is a decline nonetheless. The Hawks still had the number one offence in the game on my Offensive Efficiency Rating until last season, a title they held from 2012 through 2015.



Even as Franklin’s influence waned, before diminishing all together, Hawthorn were the attacking Polaris.

Once again, it is difficult to predict what would have happened to the Hawks’ scoring system if Franklin remained. It is safe to assume it would be no worse, and it is safe to assume it would have been better. But better is such a vague concept.

Another difficult-to-quantify impact is on the Hawthorn salary cap, which until a very public squeeze this off-season always seemed to have the rigidity of an elastic band.

If the Hawks had somehow matched Sydney’s giant-sized offer, there is no way known they would be in a position to offer James Frawley a significant contract in the 2014 off-season.

That would have created a huge headache for the Hawks’ list management team, who’d have been piecing together a back six made up of Josh Gibson, Grant Birchall and a bunch of draftees.

Avoiding Franklin’s salary cap hit likely contributed to Hawthorn’s ability to keep the guts of their 2008 premiership team together as it aged, in addition to the various bolt-on pieces acquired over the years. Letting their most valuable player may have extended Hawthorn’s premiership window by a year.

It continues: would the Hawks have been in a position to bring in Jaeger O’Meara, Tom Mitchell and Ty Vickery in the 2016 off-season if they had $1.2 million owing to Franklin, even if they still jettisoned Sam Mitchell and Jordan Lewis? No – there’s no grey here.

The Lance Franklin deal was one of the AFL’s great sliding door moments. One-third of the way through, and it looks as though everyone’s a winner – even Carlton, who’ve been struggling in that department in recent years.



A first among equals? It has to be the Giants, who have indirectly benefitted from missing out on one of the most prized individuals in the game at the team-wide level.

Ironically, GWS might just end up winning a premiership without Franklin before Sydney win one with him. If only judging an event as complex as the Franklin deal was so simple.