Straight-up superb

Franklin’s old mentor lauds kicking style

AFL goal-kicking legend Jason Dunstall once tried – unsuccessfully – to straighten out Lance Franklin’s run up when kicking for goal.

The Hawthorn great now describes Franklin’s re-engineered goal-kicking style as a thing of beauty and the reason behind his deadly accuracy.

For most of his career, Buddy’s hook-style run up and kick has kept him around the 50 per cent conversion rate.

Then something happened in the lead-up to Round 21 last year – Franklin’s run up has no curve and the flight of the ball doesn’t either.

It probably won him his fourth Coleman despite a 48.7 per cent accuracy for shots on goal for the season.

Since Round 21 last year, the Swans superstar has booted 38 goals, 16 from nine games, at an accuracy of 62 per cent.

Whether it was the game’s all-time leading goal-kicker Tony “Plugger” Lockett whispering in Franklin’s ear or Swans great Nick Davis’s persuasive tones isn’t clear.

But Dunstall is certain the penny has finally dropped for Franklin, which is why he’s reaping the benefits with career-best accuracy.

“He’s definitely running a hell of a lot straighter,” Dunstall said.

“The first thing that does is keeps him aligned to the target but what we are also seeing is a much straighter ball flight from him.

“He used to kick from the flank and he would kick across the ball and make it go right to left. Now they are like darts – they’re beautiful.

“His kicks now have a perfectly true trajectory.

“He’s done a lot of work on it and it’s showing.”

When Dunstall was footy director at Hawthorn, he set up a row of witches hats for Franklin to run straight through on his approach for goal but it didn’t work. As soon as he got near one he simply stopped.

“Sometimes when you are a really good young player you are just used to doing things your own way and it takes a while to buy into stuff,” Dunstall said.

“He’s bought into it now and they are reaping the benefits. He is kicking beautifully.”

Dunstall sits third on the list of all-time goal-kickers (1254 goals) and Franklin ninth (877) after overtaking Collingwood great Peter McKenna last week. He won’t get near his old Hawks mentor but the 1000 mark looks well within his range.

“It’s taken him a while to get comfortable doing that but he’s making it look easy and the more he does it, the better he is going to kick it,” Dunstall said.

“Early on he was having so many shots for goal it just didn’t matter.

“He values the shots a lot more now and he’s become a lot more team-oriented. He happily gives them off to teammates in a better spot.”