Training halts Buddy's party

Written By Unknown on Senin, 02 Desember 2013 | 18.49

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MAYBE if they dangled a blonde in front he might have fared a little better.

Told him there was a bikini contest waiting at the end.

Instead, the Sydney Swans were happy to let Lance Franklin, who goes by the alter ago Buddy, take his place at the back of his running group as he starts the long haul back to full fitness.

Casual readers might find it surprising to see Franklin photographed in training gear and learn that he actually has some athletic ability.

They would be forgiven for thinking this way after Franklin emerged as the life of the party at the Melbourne Cup carnival, in bow tie and boater, charming at least one international supermodel.

He headed home to Sydney and was snapped doing a world record "phwoar!'' at a Bondi bikini contest, where he has become a regular sighting.

Nightclub sightings, Bondi cruises, and Franklin has emerged perfect fodder for a celebrity-obsessed city like Sydney.

It prompted a small tip from Swans legend Adam Goodes.

"On day one the first thing I'm going to be looking at is how fit he is when he rocks up to training," he said.

Goodes, who joined Franklin at training yesterday, wouldn't be wholly disappointed.

Yet Goodes' concern is perhaps more in line with the wider football community.

While Franklin's agent said he signed with Sydney to partly escape the "fishbowl" existence of being an AFL star in an AFL town, those who know him say the opposite is true.

Model Kate Upton and Sydney star Lance Franklin with the Melbourne Cup. Picture: Alex Coppel. Source: News Limited

Franklin loves the limelight, and the truth of his move from Melbourne to Sydney is that it takes him from being an AFL player in an AFL town to a personality in a celebrity-obsessed town.

Football is now merely his vehicle.

Yet already there have been whispers of his enthusiasm for the party lifestyle as he acclimatises, prompting a subtle defence from Swans coach John Longmire yesterday.

"I'm not sure whether it's a case of pulling him in line," he said.

"There's a case of every player on our list [being] entitled to an off-season"

It has greater relevance with the Swans, of course.

The Swans have the great unwritten rule in Australian sport: The No Dickheads Policy, which has been widely copied but never reproduced.

They famously built the 2005 premiership on the back of refusing to tolerate jerks on their roster and have held true to its sentiment through a rare run of success in the salary cap era. This included the 2012 premiership.

Yet if anyone appears as though they will challenge the rule it is, at least based on early running, Franklin.

He is a superstar, so more inclined to have his behaviour tolerated. And he appears slow to understand its implications, though it was the off-season.

Still, it demands the question, at what point does a player go from being a valued team member, as they say, to being a dickhead?

Longmire looked a little taken aback when the question was put to him yesterday, although it wasn't intended with any malice.

"I just think it's pretty simple," he said.

"It's just preparing well on and off the ground to give yourself the best possible chance to be a good player, no matter who you are.

"Regardless of whether its Lance Franklin or Zac Jones, the expectation is it work hard and prepare for the season ahead."

Franklin performed strongly in the club's three kilometre time trial, Longmire said, leading with Ted Richards among the club's key playing group.

Franklin settled to the rear of his group when the Swans broke into groups for 300m and 400m efforts, and while some in the group starting 10 seconds behind caught him, he kept on giving.


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