If the Swans win the Grand Final, Franklin will become just the third player to win successive premierships with different clubs (and the first to win the second flag against his former club).
The other two players to achieve this rare feat have Franklin well covered when it comes to controversial exits.
Jim Martin played in premierships with Essendon (1912) and Fitzroy (1913), while Tom Fitzmaurice* also enjoyed success with Essendon (1923-24) and Geelong (1925).
Martin was the first league player charged with assault for an on-field incident, while Fitzmaurice was embroiled in an alleged match-fixing scandal.
Martin seemed doomed to never taste glory.
His well-travelled career actually started at Carlton, where he played six games in 1902 as a 17-year-old.
For reasons that are unclear, he spent the next four seasons with VFA club Northcote before joining Essendon in 1907.
By then, Martin had the imposing nickname "Bull" – for his brawny physique (173cm/85kg) and bullocking style as a forward pocket/follower.
Martin's vigour got him into trouble in round eight, 1911, when he upended Fitzroy star George Holden, who had run with the ball towards him.
The tribunal suspended Martin for the rest of the season (12 games) for striking with a left fist, despite Martin and other witnesses insisting he had used his shoulder.
Police even pressed charges and, in a "filled to overflowing" district courtroom, Martin was convicted and fined £5. However, this was quashed on appeal due to insufficient evidence.
Lance Franklin and Jarryd Roughead with the 2013 premiership cup. Picture: AFL Media
Martin (who lived in Fitzroy) wrote to the VFL asking for his suspension to also be overturned. The league refused, and Martin missed out on playing in Essendon's 1911 premiership against Collingwood. (Three years earlier he had played in a losing grand final.)
However, Martin's fortunes soon changed – dramatically.
The next year, he played in an Essendon premiership.
Given the apparent hostility between Essendon and Fitzroy, and Martin and Holden (not so incidentally, Holden also received a lengthy suspension following their return match in 1911), it must have been a shock when Martin asked to be cleared to Fitzroy midway through 1913.
Martin's second game for Fitzroy was against Essendon, and one of his former teammates was reported (and cleared) for elbowing him.
Three months later he slotted a place-kick goal that virtually sealed the flag for Fitzroy against St Kilda.
Martin retired the next year, aged 30, after 128 games and 89 goals.
He died at 56 in October 1940.
Fitzmaurice was, in many ways, the antithesis of Martin. The son of an Irish hurling great, he was a superb, almost Franklin-like physical specimen at 192cms and 96kgs, and was even a Victorian high-jump champion during his football career.
A high-leaping ruckman and key-position player, Fitzmaurice was one of the game's superstars.
Carlton could have landed him when the then 18-year-old tried out at Princes Park in 1917.
The next year, Essendon welcomed him with relish.
In 1921 Fitzmaurice transferred to Sydney in his job with the Commonwealth Bank, won a local premiership and captained New South Wales against Victoria.
He returned to Essendon the next year and, as a permanent key defender, was soon widely regarded as the best player in the competition.
The Champion of the Colony in 1923-24, Fitzmaurice also won three successive Essendon best and fairests (1922-23-24).
He piloted the "Same Olds" to back-to-back premierships, after which The Argus' "Old Boy" marvelled that "Fitzmaurice was, as he always is, the rock on which all waves broke. In the air he was unapproachable, and in his rushes – well, no one seems to be inclined to get in front of him."
At 25, Fitzmaurice was at his peak.
Then came the bombshell – Fitzmaurice left Essendon for Geelong.
When applying for a clearance he explained to the league he had a business in Geelong.
The explosive truth came out a decade later.
In 1935 Fitzmaurice revealed in The Sporting Globe that he had stormed out of Essendon in disgust after some teammates had accepted bribes to play dead in a post-season clash with VFA premier Footscray.
In a boilover at the MCG, Essendon lost the "Championship of Victoria" by 28 points.
Fitzmaurice, one of the best players afield, described the game as "a frame up", and was fuming about the lack of effort by some teammates.
"Some Essendon players were offered money to let Footscray win and they refused it; a few others sold Essendon and the League without compunction," Fitzmaurice wrote.
"At the (last change) a number of us expressed disgust and decided that further effort was useless. We were unable to carry the dead 'uns."
As he walked from the field, he accused a teammate of letting down the club and was told: "What are you squealing about? You could have been in the cut-up."
Fitzmaurice was so angry that he'd been drawn into the debacle that he told Essendon officials he would never play with the club again.
Despite playing just 85 games, Fitzmaurice had already done enough to be named the No. 10 Champion of Essendon (in 2002); and earn a spot in Essendon's Team of the Century (1997).
Then Fitzmaurice was an integral part of Geelong's first premiership – his third in succession.
His high moral values were reinforced when he agreed to captain-coach Geelong in 1928 on the proviso that his coaching payments be shared evenly among his teammates.
Fitzmaurice's glittering 188-game career finished at North Melbourne, which he also captain-coached.
A longtime publican despite being a teetotaller, Fitzmaurice died on Christmas Day, 1977, aged 79.
SUCCESSIVE GRAND FINALS WITH DIFFERENT CLUBS
Jim Martin: Essendon (1912 – win) and Fitzroy (1913 – win)
Bryan Wood: Richmond (1982 – loss) and Essendon (1983 – loss)
Luke Ball: St Kilda (2009 – loss) and Collingwood (2010 – win)
Lance Franklin: Hawthorn (2013 – win) and Sydney Swans (2014 – ?)
* Tom Fitzmaurice doesn't qualify here because there was no Grand Final in 1924. Essendon won after a round-robin finals series.
