Hayden McLean has been at the Sydney Swans for all of about 18 weeks, or 0.28% of the time the club has been in operation since 1897.

Yet on Saturday night against Fremantle in Perth the 20-year-old ruckman, set to become player #1423 on the all-time playing list, will grab his very own place in club history.

He will be the first ‘Hayden’ to wear the red and white. Either as a Christian name or a surname.

Overlooked entirely in the 2017-18 drafts and recruited from the Dandenong Stingrays in the former TAC Cup via SANFL club South Adelaide under the pre-season supplementary rules in March, he will join a classy list of Stingrays graduates.

Among the former Dandenong Stingrays players now in the Swans camp are co-captain Josh Kennedy, football manager Charlie Gardner, and boom youngster Oliver Florent. Among the recent alumni is 2012 premiership defender Ted Richards.

Prominent Stingrays players who have excelled with other clubs include Chris Judd, Jobe Watson, Luke Ball, Tom Hawkins, Max Gawn, Jack Gunston, Josh Kelly, Zac Merrett, Tim Taranto and Andrew McGrath.

McLean will also have something in common with Tadhg Kennelly, Tom Papley and Shane Mumford as he steps into the AFL arena.

Like Kennelly, Mumford and Papley did 18, nine and three years ago, McLean will begin his Swans career wearing jumper #41.

He will take on the jumper last worn by Papley for the first two seasons of his career in 2016-17, and will be the 20^th player in club history to wear #41 since numbers were introduced in 1912.

It is a number that was first worn for the Swans by Ern Parker in his one and only game in 1947.

Mumford holds the record for most games for the club in #41 at 79, followed by Troy Cook (43), Papley (40), Glen Parker (32) and Shane Morwood (17).

Kennelly, now on the Swans coaching staff, wore it only eight times before switching to #17.

Born on 20 January 1999, 197cm McLean shares a birthday with former Swans players Sean Dempster (1984), Brett Meredith (1989) and Hilton Kotzur (1964).

Included to replace injured ruckman Callum Sinclair, he will be the 57^th newcomer to the all-time Swans playing list since coach John Longmire took charge in 2011, the seventh club debutant this year, and the fourth AFL debutant behind Nick Blakey, Justin McInerney and James Rowbottom.

Ryan Clarke, who makes up the other three Swans newcomers this year with Jackson Thurlow and Daniel Menzel, will play his 10^th game in red and white against Fremantle and the 50^th of his AFL career.

McLean will be the first Swans player to make his AFL debut at the new Optus Stadium in Perth after the Swans played the first match at the venue against West Coast in Round 1 last year, beating the eventual premiers by 29 points in front of 53,553 people.

That match is the club’s only previous visit to the venue, which will have fond memories for Luke Parker and Jake Lloyd, who were among the Brownlow votes behind Lance Franklin, who kicked eight goals to be judged best afield.

The Swans side that will take on Fremantle tomorrow night contains no less than nine players who did not play at the club’s only other appearance at the venue: McLean, Blakey, Rowbottom, Clarke, Riley Stoddart, Colin O’Riordan, Sam Reid, Aliir Aliir and Lewis Melican.

They have replaced the injured Franklin, Sinclair, Jarrad McVeigh, Nick Smith and Harry Cunningham, the retired Heath Grundy, the de-listed Dean Towers, plus Kieren Jack (not selected) and Nic Newman (now at Carlton).