Saturday 7 September, 1996, was a day Sydney fans will never forget. After 51 years and 1040 games without a finals win, the Swans at last tasted September success.

Not since 15 September, 1945, when South Melbourne beat Collingwood in a semi-final at Princes Park to qualify for the grand final, had the Swans won a final.

It was and still is the longest run of matches without a finals win in AFL history. Next longest is Hawthorn’s 594-game streak from the club’s entry into the competition in 1925 to their first finals appearance in 1957.

It wasn’t as if the Swans had lost a lot of finals in that time. They’d played only seven, starting with the 1945 Grand Final and including one-off finals appearances in 1970 and ’77.

In 1986, in Tom Hafey’s first year at the helm, they’d come close, losing a qualifying final to Carlton by 16 points and a semi-final to Fitzroy by five points.

But in 1987, with Hafey still in charge of a side looking to atone for their straight-sets exit of the year before, they failed. They ended up losing the qualifying final to Hawthorn by 99 points and the semi-final to Melbourne in 76 points.

It was nine years before the Swans would qualify for the finals again, but in a year in which Rodney Eade had taken charge after the re-establishment era under Ron Barassi, the signs were good.

They’d improved dramatically from 12^th in 1995, when they had an 8-14 win/loss record, and with 15 wins and a draw finished top of the home-and-away ladder for the first time since 1945.

But, 22 years ago today, it would all count for nothing if they couldn’t find a way to win.

It was finals mania in the Harbour City. Only six members of the Swans side that would eventually make the triumphant finals return had played at the business end of the season before.

Mark Bayes (four finals) had survived from the Swans’ last finals sides in 1986-1987, and Paul Roos (six), Derek Kickett (seven), Stuart Maxfield (three), Kevin Dyson (five) and Craig O’Brien (one) had brought a combined 22 games’ finals experience from other clubs.

For the other 16 players it was a totally new experience.

Among the more senior players, captain and 1995 Brownlow Medallist Paul Kelly would play his first final in his 135^th game. For Dale Lewis it was 119 games, Andrew Dunkley 98 and Daryn Cresswell 91.

Troy Luff would be a 63-game finals debutant but he’d waited seven years. Jason Mooney was five years and 56 games, and Greg Stafford four years and 37 games.

Adam Heuskes (47 games), Simon Garlick (40), Brad Seymour (38) and Daniel McPherson (22) were in their third year, and Michael O’Loughlin (34), Shannon Grant (33), Justin Crawford (17) and Simon Arnott (15) were in their second year.

It was new, even for coach Rodney Eade. He’d played in a premiership in his ninth game with Hawthorn in 1976 in a 259-game career that included a total of four flags and five grand finals, but it was his first season as a senior coach.

Hawthorn, 15^th in 1995 in a season in which favorite son Peter Knights had been sacked as coach, had snuck into the finals by a whisker.

They’d beaten Melbourne by a point in Round 22 but still needed second-placed North Melbourne to beat Richmond, who were eighth going into the final round. They did by 32 points.

Skipper Jason Dunstall had kicked 10 goals in Round 22 to bring up 100 goals in a season for the sixth time and earn three Brownlow Medal votes, while ruckman Paul Salmon earned two Brownlow votes that would see him finish sixth in the medal in his first season at Hawthorn after a move from Essendon.

It was a famous game, too, for another reason. It was the famous merger game.

In a year in which the Brisbane Bears and Fitzroy had already confirmed a merger to form the Brisbane Lions there was rampant speculation that Hawthorn and Melbourne, too, would merge to form the Melbourne Hawks.

It was a hot topic that produced strong and conflicting reactions in both camps.

Prior to the game, an "anti-merger" rally led by Don Scott had been held at Hawthorn's then training ground at Glenferrie Oval, and in a now-famous post-game moment of defiance to both the League and his team's Board, Hawthorn fullback Chris Langford took off his jumper and proudly held it above his head while leaving the field.

Hawks coach Ken Judge, another first-year coach and a former teammate of Eade’s at Hawthorn and the Bears, had made two changes for the qualifying final. Simon Minton-Connell, a Sydney player from 1992-1994, and Tim Hargreaves replaced Andy Collins, who would never play again, and Paul Hudson.

Also in the Hawthorn side was ex-Sydney utility Darren Kappler, and Shane Crawford, who would play against younger brother Justin for the second and last time.

It would be Minton-Connell’s last game for the Hawks before he moved to the Western Bulldogs, and Justin Crawford’s last game for Sydney before he moved to Hawthorn.

The Swans had beaten the Hawks twice during the home-and-away season. They triumphed by 12 points at the SCG in Round 5, when O’Brien kicked six goals and Tony Lockett three, and by 23 points at Waverley in Round 20, when Lockett kicked four goals.

A crowd of 37,010 packed the SCG for the first home final since 1987, but there was a collective groan even before the start when Lockett was a late withdrawal from the selected side. The champion full forward, who had kicked 114 goals in 20 home-and-away games, had missed Round 22 with a groin injury and didn’t come up.

So, the side sent out by coach Eade included only one change from the side that had beaten West Coast by 35 points at the SCG in Round 22. Arnott replaced Wade Chapman who, after missing 12 weeks mid-season with a broken leg, had been knocked out in his comeback game against the Eagles.

The Swans would have been hot favourites with Lockett in the side to combat Dunstall, but without him it shaped as a more even contest.

Ironically it would not be Dunstall who made the difference, but the unlikely two-pronged Sydney attack of O’Brien and Mooney.

Sydney led by seven points at quarter-time but Hawthorn, with no less than 12 premiership players in the side, played like they had nothing to lose and gradually got on top of a home side that seemed hesitant and a little overcome by the occasion.

A 16-point second quarter turnaround saw Hawthorn up by nine points at halftime and they stretched their advantage to 15 points before Dunstall was stretchered from the ground with a knee problem. He’d kicked 1.3 goal from five possessions but took no further part.

This was the Swans’ opportunity. They rallied, and after Mooney kicked two goals it was back to three points by the final change.

Mooney’s third goal, which came on top of five from O’Brien, gave the Swans the lead early in the final quarter before a Tony Wood goal restored the Hawks’ advantage.

With the result in the balance, wingman Maxfield gathered the ball on the boundary line and shot for goal from a tight angle. It miraculously found the mark and scores were level.

The Hawks rushed the ball forward from the centre bounce but they were thwarted by a desperate Swans defence which eventually cleared it to Roos 65 metres from goal.

In his first final in 10 years and 208 games, Roos was too far out to score so he centred the ball. A huge pack flew in the Swans goal square and just as Hawthorn’s Nick Holland looked set to take the mark, the much smaller Cresswell jumped and plucked it out of the air.

The crowd went wild, and after Cresswell converted to give the Swans a six-point lead with less than a minute to play the home side held on for a remarkable first finals win in 51 years. 

Match Details 
Sydney Swans             3-4       4-8       8-11     13-12 (90)
Hawthorn                    2-3       6-5       9-8       12-12 (84)

Goals: Sydney: O’Brien 5, Mooney 3, Cresswell, Kelly, Maxfield, Lewis, Heuskes. Hawthorn: Graham 3, Crawford 2, Woods 2, Chick 2, Dunstall, Krummel, Kappler. 

Possessions: Sydney: Maxfield 21, Lewis 21, Cresswell 18, Roos 17, O’Brien 17, O’Loughlin 15, Kelly 14, Grant 14, Mooney 14. Hawthorn: Treleven 34, Crawford 22, Holland 21, Krummel 20, Harford 19, Salmon 18, Woods 17, Platten 16.

A fortnight later, Lockett returned from injury to kick arguably the most famous point in Swans history after the siren in the preliminary final against Essendon at the SCG to put his side into the grand final against North Melbourne. 

And although they would ultimately go down to North by 43 points at least the seemingly endless finals victory drought had been broken.

Qualifying Final teams (indicative positions only):

SYDNEY
B: McPherson, Dunkley, Luff
HB: Heuskes, Bayes, Seymour
C: Maxfield, Cresswell, Dyson
HF: Lewis, O’Loughlin, Grant
F: Kickett, Mooney, O’Brien
R: Stafford,, Roos, Kelly (c)
INT: Garlick, Crawford, Arnott

HAWTHORN
B: McCabe, Langford, Krummel
HB: Kappler, Holland, Jencke
C: Pritchard, Chick, Graham
HF: Treleven, Minton-Connell, Woods
F: Hargreaves, Dunstall (c), Taylor
R: Salmon, Crawford, Platten
INT: Lawrence, Harford, Kappler