IN THE moments after Lance Franklin sent the SCG into pandemonium, Chad Warner and Ollie Florent found themselves outside the ground. They took a wrong turn in the madness and couldn’t find their way back to the Swans rooms, ending up on Driver Avenue.
It summed up the magic of the occasion.
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Two young guns dressed to play with six minutes to play, suddenly outside the SCG while every other person rushed in the opposite direction.
It took more than half an hour for play to resume after Franklin became only the sixth man in VFL/AFL history to reach 1000 goals, but by then the game was over.
Sydney coach John Longmire took a moment to cherish what had just unfolded in front of his eyes, a moment that might never happen again.
"Most importantly we played a way which gave us the moment to be able to celebrate it and that was really important for us," Longmire said in his post-match press conference on Friday night.
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"Going into the game we didn’t talk about Lance and the ifs, buts and maybes in regards to that, we just wanted to play a certain way. To have the game at that point in hand and to be able to celebrate it was pretty special.
"We didn’t feel the pressure in the build up to the milestone; my attitude was always that it will happen when it happens. I know it sounds boring, but we didn’t talk about Lance in every meeting and talk about his thousand goals; it was always going to happen when it happened; we didn’t need to build the pressure, we just needed to take it away.
"He's a footy head, Lance, so he fully appreciates the significance of it. He should be really proud of that."
Not long after the Sydney Swans exited the ground after the 30-point win over Geelong, Longmire called all the players, staff and Franklin's family into a meeting room to take a moment to reflect on the significance of the milestone.
Only Tony Lockett, Gordon Coventry, Jason Dunstall, Doug Wade and Gary Ablett Snr had reached the magical mark before Friday night. Now there is a sixth name etched in history.
"That was one of the more special moments you probably get. I just said to the players after the game, we're all privileged, in my instance to coach Lance, but also the players that he's played with over the years, both at Sydney and Hawthorn," he said.
"We've just been able to watch one of the all-time greats go about his business. To be able to sit there tonight and watch that was pretty special."
Instead of reaching the milestone last weekend at Accor Stadium Australia or next Thursday night at Marvel Stadium, Franklin ensured Sydney Swans supporters had the chance to savour the moment at the Sydney Cricket Ground – the same place Lockett surpassed Coventry's longstanding record of 1299 goals on June 6, 1999.
"Plenty of people talk about 'Plugger' and they were here and where they sat; I'm sure the same thing will be talked about in the future about Lance," he said.
"1000 goals wherever he kicked it was going to be special. But as its turned out, to have it here in the last quarter – the last quarter that went forever – to have our home supporters be part of that was pretty special."
Franklin finished with four goals from 10 disposals and seven marks in a performance that will spoken about for as long as football is played at the SCG.
