Nick Blakey and Lewis Melican are so different in so many ways – before and in the AFL, on and off the field. The long-haired dasher who grew up in the city and was always going to be an AFL star, and the well-groomed country boy who has done it much tougher.

But the pair who share key position roles in the Sydney Swans defence will be united in the hope of celebrating major career milestones against Geelong at the SCG on Sunday.

Blakey will play his 150^th game and Melican his 100^th game in what will be the 77^th game they have played together.

Individually, they have an unblemished record in milestones games. Blakey won his 50^th against GWS by 26 points at Carrara during Covid in 2021, and his 100^th against Adelaide by a point in Adelaide in 2023. And Melican enjoyed a 14-point win over North Melbourne in his 50^th at Marvel Stadium in 2021.

But this will be a tough assignment in a game in which the 10^th-placed Swans are playing for pride against a second-placed Cats outfit desperate to lock in a top-two berth for the finals.

Blakey, 25, and Melican, going on 29, are proof that it takes all types to make up a football team.

Blakey, the son of Fitzroy and North Melbourne 359-gamer John, who sits equal 15^th on the all-time AFL games list, was born in Melbourne and split his youth surrounded by AFL identities in Melbourne and Sydney, the two biggest cities in the country.

Melican hailed from Birregurra, a town 130km south-west of Melbourne which in the last census in 2021 had a population of 942, and claims as its most famous footballer Firth McCallum, who was a member of Geelong’s first team in 1897 and played 74 games from 1897-1905.

Blakey was a star product of the QBE Sydney Swans Academy who was always going to play at the elite level. He had a choice of going as a father/son draftee to Brisbane via the Fitzroy connection or North Melbourne, or to Sydney as an Academy player. He was pick #10 in the 2018 Draft, debuted in Round 1, 2019 and has missed only nine games.

Melican played with the Geelong Falcons in the then TAC Cup, was overlooked in the 2014 National Draft, and was taken at pick #52 in the Rookie Draft. He didn’t break into the AFL side until Round 5, 2017 and has watched the club play 155 games.

Blakey wears the more ‘fashionable’ jumper #22, which has been the moniker of four AFL 300 gamers. Melican wears #43, which boasts an honour roll of just two 200-gamers and has been worn only 136 times in the AFL this year – and not at all by six clubs.

Each will be the first Swans to player their respective milestones in their respective jumpers.

Blakey is a high-possession dasher, averaging 17.1 possessions after a lesser start, with six 30-possession games and 53 20-possession games. He had two bounces in his third game, six in his 10^th and has 210 career bounces. And he can be dangerous up forward, having kicked 47 goals, with a best of three and five two’s.

Melican is a lockdown specialist, averaging 10.3 possessions with a best of 17. He didn’t have his first bounce until his 88^th game and has a total of three – all ‘singles’ and all this year. He has kicked two goals – one in his 10^th game and one seven years later his 81^st game.

At 25 years 171 days Blakey will be 74^th player in Swans history to play 150 games – and the sixth-youngest behind Luke Parker, Tony Morwood, Michael O’Loughlin, Dan Hannebery and Mark Bayes.

Melican, at 28 years 286 days, will be the 146^th 100-gamer and, excluding imports, the sixth-oldest since the club’s move to Sydney. Only Robbie Fox, Mike Pyke, Ian Roberts, Francis Jackson and Troy Luff were older at the same mark.

But for all the differences, there’s a special bond between the pair that comes with playing together in defence, and their respective milestones will mean just as much to each other as they will to themselves.

And one will be just as important as the other on Sunday – Melican perhaps more so if he gets the match-up on Geelong spearhead Jeremy Cameron, who already has the Coleman Medal locked up.

The Swans, coming off a two-point win over premiers Brisbane in Brisbane last week, will be primed to continue an outstanding back end to their first season under coach Dean Cox.

Indeed, if there was a trophy for the ‘season’ which began in Round 13 they’d be right in the mix.

After going 4-8 through the first 12 games to sit 14^th on the ladder they’ve enjoyed a 7-2 run which ranks equal 3^rd for this period, behind only Adelaide and Fremantle at (8-1) and equal with Geelong and GWS.