Sydney Swans workhorse Kieren Jack returned to the senior side in Saturday’s Sydney Derby XVIII and in doing so joined the 5000 Club.
Heading into the match, Jack needed just four possessions against GWS to become the eighth Sydney Swans player to reach 5000 disposals.
The milestone takes in all matches since the start of the 1965 season, when the League began keeping possession statistics for all players.
Swans games record holder Adam Goodes also leads the club’s all-time possession count with 6390, and is followed by Jarrad McVeigh (6253), Josh Kennedy (6153), Jude Bolton (5831), Daryn Cresswell (5601), Ryan O’Keefe (5154) and Dan Hannebery (5069), followed by Jack, whose tally now stands at 5008.
Making up the top 10 are Paul Kelly (4777) and Mark Browning (4667).
Luke Parker, 13th on the all-time list at 4399 behind Stevie Wright (4526) and Brett Kirk (4462) and ahead of Barry Mitchell (4361), Heath Grundy (4258), Michael O’Loughlin (4198) and Dennis Carroll (4177), looms as the next 5000 Club member.
Interestingly, statistics were only kept for the last six seasons and 98 games of the career of the legendary Bob Skilton. In that time, he had 2609 possessions at an average of 26.62 possessions per game.
Among 327 players to play 50 or more games for the Swans this ranks Skilton third behind only Greg Williams, who averaged 28.40 possessions per game through 107 games from 1986-91, and Josh Kennedy, whose average per game for the Swans stands at 26.87.
Others averaging above 20.00 possessions per game are Gerard Healy (26.40), Barry Mitchell (25.65), Tom Mitchell (25.14), Hannebery (24.37), the surging Jake Lloyd (24.04), Norm Goss (23.36), Parker (23.03), Cresswell (22.95), Wayne Schwass (22.85), Peter Bedford (21.68), Kelly (20.41) and Greg Smith (20.31).
Lloyd has amassed 562 possessions at an average of 31.22 possessions per game this season, ranking fourth in the AFL for possessions behind only Collingwood’s Adam Treloar (611), Western Bulldogs Jack Macrae (578) and Brisbane’s Lachie Neale (567).
In his sixth season, he has pushed up his career average from 22.91 at the end of last season.
Ollie Florent, back into the side this week after being a late withdrawal last week, became the 328th player to play 50 games for the Swans and just the sixth player to play 50 games in jumper #13.
Rod Carter is the #13 games record holder at 217, followed by Daniel McPherson (87), Adam Schneider (74), Neil Brunton (71), Graham Dempster (51) and Florent (50).
