Luke Parker, Lance Franklin and Nick Blakey will each grab a slice of Sydney Swans finals history as season 2022 kicks into overdrive in Friday night’s qualifying final against Melbourne at the MCG.

Parker, heading into his ninth finals campaign, will become just the 10^th player among 1442 players all-time to play 20 finals for the Swans.

Franklin, set for his 26th final overall and his 12th in red and white, will become the Swans’ fourth-oldest finals player in history.

And Blakey, who will make his finals debut in his 76^th AFL game, will end a wait for a taste of September football like no other Swans player in 26 years.

Ryan Clarke, who played 40 games at North Melbourne before joining Sydney in 2019, has waited even longer – his first final will be his 39^th Swans game and his 79^th game overall.

And among three other likely finals debutants, ‘comeback king’ Paddy McCartin will end a wait of eight years to play at the business end of the season for the first time in his 57^th game.

Completing the list of would-be finals debutants in the Round 23 Swans side are Dylan Stephens and Logan McDonald, who are set for their 28^th and 23^rd games.

Headlining the ‘stats-fest’ as the Swans play their first MCG final since the 2016 grand final, Parker will join the ‘20 Finals Club’, which counts among its membership Adam Goodes and Jarrad McVeigh (28), Jude Bolton (26), Ryan O’Keefe (24), Josh Kennedy, Kieren Jack and Dan Hannebery (22) and Nick Smith (20).

Parker, with 347 finals possessions, is also 10^th on the Swans’ all-time finals possessions list headed by Kennedy (636), McVeigh (526), Hannebery (518) and Goodes (503).

Franklin, who will be 35 years and 215 days old when he begins his sixth Swans finals campaign and his 12^th overall, will find himself behind only three players on the list of the club’s oldest finals players.

Ahead of him are Arthur Hiskins, who was 37 years 27 days in his 185^th game in the 1923 preliminary final, Jack Bisset, who was 36 years 32 days in his 128^th game in the 1936 grand final, and Goodes, who was 35 years 254 days in his 372^nd game in the 2015 semi-final. Each was playing their last game.

Franklin’s 26^th final will put him equal 23^rd on the AFL’s all-time finals list, headed by ex-Hawthorn captain Michael Tuck (39), current Geelong captain Joel Selwood (37) and recently-retired Hawthorn/Port Adelaide utility Shaun Burgoyne (35).

Blakey, who missed last year’s final against GWS through injury, has waited longer for his first final than every Swans player since the 1996 finals, when Paul Kelly (135 games), Dale Lewis (110), Andrew Dunkley (98) and Daryn Cresswell (91) made their long-awaited finals debut.

Fifteen Swans played more than 100 games for the club before their first final in red and white – Bob Skilton (218), Tony Morwood (177), Rod Carter (145), Stevie Wright (143), Peter Reville (137), Kelly (135), Herbert Milne (133), John Rantall (130), Dennis Carroll (126), Norm Goss (121), Ricky Quade (120), Anthony Daniher (114), Hec McKay (112), Lewis (110) and Ian Roberts (106).

At the other end of the scale, three Swans debuted in a final – Jacky Harris and Gil Miller in 1924, and Ron Bywater in 1942.

Harris and Miller’s first game came in a year in which the top four sides on the home-and-away ladder played a round-robin finals series. They got their chance in a ‘dead’ final against Fitzroy at the MCG after South Melbourne had lost their first two round-robin games to drop out of contention.

It was Miller’s only AFL game, while Harris played the first five games of the 1925 season before fading off the scene.

Bywater played the first of 58 games in a year in which third-placed South Melbourne and fourth-played Footscray played in a knockout semi-final at Princes Park. They won but he didn’t play in the preliminary final loss a fortnight later.

Later Bywater played one game in 1944 as his early career was disrupted by war service, before adding 52 from 1946-50 without any more finals. A key position player used at either end of the ground, he finished equal third in the 1947 Brownlow Medal and was runner-up to Billy Williams in the 1947 South best & fairest.

In the Swans’ 40-year history in Sydney 10 players have played their first final inside their first five games, headed by Shane Biggs, who debuted in the last round of the 2013 home-and-away season and played his second and third games in the finals. He played only six games for the club in total and was later a 2016 premiership player with Western Bulldogs.

Also in this group of 10 is current player Harry Cunningham, who debuted in Round 1, 2012 and played Rounds 17, 18 and 23 in 2013 before adding a semi-final and preliminary final to his games list in the same season.

Details of the 10 were:

2 - Shane Biggs – SF/2013
3 – Mitch Morton – QF/2012
3 – James Rose – SF/2015
4 – Tony Smith – SF/1986
4 – Ed Barlow – EF/2007
5 – Brett Kirk – QF/1999
5 – Patrick Veszpremi – EF/2008
5 – Matt Spangher – EF/2011
5 – Harry Cunningham – SF/2013
5 – Harry Marsh – QF/2016