The Sydney Swans will be chasing a record sixth consecutive win over the Giants at the Sydney Showgrounds tonight as Dane Rampe, Jake Lloyd, Tom Papley and Jack Buller celebrate special moments in Sydney Derby history and Errol Gulden continues his push for derby royalty.

In a domination, which has gone strangely unrecognised in the lead-up to Sydney Derby #31, the Swans are unbeaten against the Giants since August 2023, having won three times at the SCG in that run and twice at the Showgrounds.

This has bettered four-game winning streaks against GWS in 2012-13 and 2014-16, and gives them an aggregate 20-10 advantage.

It’s been an extension of a run in which the Swans have won nine of the past 12 games between the two Sydney-based clubs, and lost twice by one point and once by two points.

In reverse chronological order, they’ve won the last five by 14-6-27-29-11, and both meetings in 2022 by 73 points and 20 points. And in ‘neutral’ derbies at Carrara in 2021 and Perth Stadium in 2020 they won by 26 points and 41 points.

In Round 7, 2023 at the SCG, Sydney led by 24 points 10 minutes into the final quarter but conceded the last five goals, including the winner to GWS’ Toby Greene deep in time-on, and lost by one point.

In the 2021 Elimination Final in Launceston, the Swans were down by 29 points a minute into final term, and they kicked five of the last six goals but their last six scores were all behinds as they went down by a point.

And in Round 5, 2021 at the SCG  they led by 21 points when Tom Papley kicked the first goal of the final quarter inside three minutes, and by 15 after a Lance Franklin goal at the 13-minute mark, but GWS, after five consecutive behinds, kicked the last two goals to win by two points.

The five-game winning streak going into a weekend in which the eight non-Victorian clubs will play each other has been bettered only six times in a combined history of 175 games that goes back to the first year of Fremantle in 1995, Port Adelaide in 1997, and Gold Coast in 2011, before GWS in 2012.

Longest winning streaks in non-Victorian derbies are:

11 – West Coast v Fremantle 2015-21
  9 – West Coast v Fremantle 1995-99
  9 – Brisbane v Gold Coast 2018-23
  7 – Port Adelaide v Adelaide 2000-03
  7 – Fremantle v West Coast 2007-10
  6 – Fremantle v West Coast 2012-15

And while the Swans will need to win their last five games of the season, and rely on other results to fall their way, to claim an improbable finals berth, they will play a pivotal role in at least shaping the top eight, with three of their last five games against finals contenders.

After sixth-placed GWS tonight, they’ve got second-placed Brisbane at the Gabba in Round 22 and fourth-placed Geelong at the SCG in Round 23.

Rampe, already the third-oldest Swans player in the Sydney Derby and having celebrated his 35th birthday on 2 June, tonight will become just the 13th player to play in a non-Victorian derby beyond 35.

Set to play at 35 years 53 days tonight, he’s behind only Lance Franklin (36/89) in 2023, and Adam Goodes (35/226) in 2015 in red and white.

Fremantle’s David Mundy is the oldest player in a non-Victorian derby at 37 years 24 days in 2022, followed by ex-teammate Aaron Sandilands (36/214), Franklin, Brisbane’s Dayne Zorko (36/84), Port’s Travis Boak (36/16), GWS’ James McDonald (35/269), Goodes, West Coast’s Shannon Hurn (35/210), Brisbane’s Luke Hodge (35/56), GWS’ ex-Swan Shane Mumford (35/54), GWS’ Callan Ward (35/24) and Adelaide’s Taylor Walker (35/15).

Rampe at 35/53 tonight will slot in behind the injured Ward, while Zorko, Boak and Walker will also climb higher up the ’35-Plus’ list this weekend.

Boak, injured earlier this year, will jump to second spot overall at 36/359, while Zorko will play at 36/167 and Walker at 35/92.

In other Swans derby milestones tonight, Jake Lloyd, behind only Luke Parker (27) on the club derby list, will play his 25th Sydney Derby, and Tom Papley will return from injury to become the seventh Swan to play 20 times in the Sydney Derby.

Rampe will play his 24th, Isaac Heeney his 23rd and Harry Cunningham his 22nd to pull level with Josh Kennedy (22) as Jack Buller will get his first taste of the cross-town Sydney rivalry.

Lloyd, with 576 derby possessions, is sixth on the overall possession list in non-Victorian derbies, and needs only 11 possessions tonight to equal Parker’s Swans-best of 587, while Papley, with 31 derby goals, is 15th overall and second only to Franklin’s 50 in red and white.

Gulden, who has played only 10 times in the Sydney Derby, will look to continue an extraordinary streak in which he’s topped the Brownlow Medal votes in each of the last three games in which votes have been declared – derby #26-27-28 – after two votes in derby #24.

In all non-Victorian derby records:

GAMES
Fremantle’s Matthew Pavlich (34) holds the games record from Boak (32), Mundy (31), Hurn (28), Adelaide’s Andrew McLeod (27), Ward (27), Port’s Kane Cornes (27), West Coast ruckman turned Sydney coach Dean Cox (27), Sandilands (26), West Coast’s Jack Darling (26), Parker (25), Zorko (25), Adelaide’s Scott Thompson (25), Port’s Justin Westhoff (25), West Coast’s Andrew Gaff (25) and GWS’ Lachie Whitfield (25).

GOALS
Pavlich also heads the goals list with 61 from West Coast’s Josh Kennedy (55), Walker (53), Darling (52), Franklin (50), West Coast’s Mark LeCras (43), Port’s Robbie Gray (40), GWS’ Greene (36) and Fremantle’s Michael Walters (36). Behind Franklin and Papley on the Swans list among 36 players with 20 derby goals are Heeney (29) and Will Hayward (23).

POSSESSIONS
Gaff, with 633 possessions in his 25 appearances in the Western Derby, heads 16 players with more than 500 derby possessions. He heads Ward (625), Thompson (614), Parker (587), Cornes (580), Lloyd (576), Whitfield (553), Kennedy (548), Hurn (547), Pavlich (543), Zorko (542), McLeod (539), West Coast’s Matt Priddis (535), Adelaide’s Rory Laird (535), Port’s Ollie Wines (527) and GWS’ Josh Kelly (526).

BROWNLOW VOTES
This is a red-and-white dais. Parker has most votes in non -Victorian derbies with 19, from the 16 of his long-time teammate Kennedy and the 15 of Franklin, who shares third spot with West Coast’s Daniel Kerr. Boak (14), Port’s Josh Francou (14) and West Coast’s Guy McKenna (13). Completing the top 10 with 12 votes are Gray, Fremantle’s Stephen Hill and Jarryd Lyons, who played with Brisbane and Gold Coast in the Queensland derby, and with Adelaide in the Showdown.

DERBY TRIVIA  
Jarryd Lyons is one of three players to play with three clubs in non-Victorian derbies. The other two are West Coast, Fremantle and Port Adelaide midfielder Jarrad Schofield, and GWS, Port Adelaide and Gold Coast defender Jack Hombsch.

Eleven players who have represented the Swans in a Sydney Derby have also played in one of the other three non-Victorian derbies – including new Hall of Famer Nick Malceski, who also played with Gold Coast in the Queensland derby, and Joel Hamling, who will play his second Sydney Derby tonight after five games for Fremantle in the WA Derby.

Kurt Tippett, Aliir Aliir, Jordan Dawson, Martin Mattner, Tony Armstrong and Peter Ladhams have also played in the Showdown, and Callum Sinclair, Lewis Jetta and Tom Hickey in the WA Derby.

SYDNEY DERBY RECORDS

Errol Gulden holds the Sydney Derby possession record at 41 in Derby #29 in 2024, while three players share the Sydney Derby goals record – Lance Franklin kicked five goals four times, while Luke Parker and Kurt Tippett did so once each.