Franklin kicked eight goals and six behinds in his team's 54-point defeat of Collingwood on Friday night at the MCG.
“I’m not going to be surprised one day if Franklin breaks that record for the number of goals kicked in one game. If it’s not him it’s Roughead. They kicked 12 goals between them tonight,” Malthouse said after the match.
But the coach believes his side lost the game in the middle of the ground, and says the start to the match was the worst possible.
“It didn’t set it up the way it was intended, the way they got a flier. They cleared it out of the centre so easily and as a consequence it puts so much pressure on you.
“When you get beaten 21-7 in the middle it’s not hard to work out that you are going to get thrashed.”
Malthouse said that the defence did as well as it could under the circumstances.
“I’ll say now that Franklin is better than any of our defenders. That’s not a slur on Nick Maxwell; he showed enormous courage from the third quarter onwards … Whatever he (Franklin) kicked in the last quarter it wasn’t through lack of effort from Nick Maxwell.
The Magpies have lost five of their last seven games and have gone from top-four contenders to battling to stay in finals contention. But Malthouse remained philosophical about the Magpies drop in form.
"Unfortunately at this stage we lack in a lot of areas,” he said.
“People can have a bad day and people can have a bad month, which we are close to having. It doesn’t make them any less of a good person, we have some terrific people who are not in good form.
“Paul Medhurst’s last kick probably summed up where we were. That’s his bread and butter and he kicked it out on the full.”
