Jake Lloyd on Saturday will become just the second player in Swans history – and the first in 104 years – to play his 200^th AFL game in a grand final.

And if he’s looking for somebody to chat to about his special milestone he doesn’t have to go far. A walk into the office of coach John Longmire would get it done.

It is a truly special milestone. Among 13,026 AFL players all-time only 644 have reached 200 games, and of them only six celebrated their double century on grand final day.

It is another triumph, too, for the AFL rookie system, introduced in 1997, and a monstrous tick for the Swans recruiting team.

Lloyd, recruited by the Swans via pick #15 in the rookie draft in 2012, will be the 45^th ex-rookie to play 200 AFL games, the 30^th to do so at the club which drafted them, and the sixth Swan.

Having celebrated his 29^th birthday on Tuesday, Lloyd will join 2022 grand final teammate and co-captain Dane Rampe, Heath Grundy, Kieren Jack, Brett Kirk and Nick Smith in this group of rookies turned 200-gamers.

It’s all part of a convoluted statistical history that goes back to 1918 when Vic Belcher, Swans Team of the Century member and AFL Hall of Famer, led South Melbourne to the premiership in his 200^th game.

A 180cm defender/ruckman born in Lebrina, near Launceston, and recruited to South from Brunswick in 1907, Belcher was just the fifth player in competition history to reach 200 games in the 22^nd year of what was then known as the VFL.

A South Melbourne premiership player in 1909, Belcher was captain-coach in 1914-15 and again in 1917 after the club sat out of the competition in 1916 during World War II.

In 1918 he was vice-captain to Jim Caldwell under new coach Bert Howson as South finished minor premiers with a 13-1 record. After beating Carlton by five points in the semi-final they faced Collingwood in the grand final. Belcher started in defence before he was switched into the ruck and inspired another five-point win 9.8 (62) to 7.15 (57).

Belcher, who had a 2-3 record in five grand finals as a player and later coached Fitzroy to the 1922 premiership, was the Swans’ first member of the AFL’s 200 Club that now numbers 644. Lloyd will be #645.

Only five others have celebrated their 200^th game in a grand final – Carlton’s John Nicholls in 1968, Hawthorn’s Don Scott in 1976 and Essendon’s Garry Foulds in 1984, and the two coaches in Saturday’s grand final – Longmire and Geelong counterpart Chris Scott.

Longmire, who has coached Lloyd throughout his entire career, played his 200^th and last game with North Melbourne in the 1996 grand final, and Scott played his 200^th game with Brisbane in the 2004 grand final. Scott was the only one of the six to lose.

Since Belcher was the Swans’ first 200-gamer 104 years ago there have been 33 more. Lloyd who will be the 35^th overall and the second from Horsham, a Victorian town of about 20,000 people 300km north-west of Melbourne that also delivered Swans games record-holder Adam Goodes.

Lloyd was a four-time senior premiership player with the Horsham Demons before he was drafted by the Swans in 2012 with selection #16 in the rookie draft. He was the 83^rd first-time draftee in his year and will be fourth to play 200 games.

It was a rookie draft that also delivered Dane Rampe, who with Luke Parker and Callum Mills will lead the Swans into Saturday’s grand final. Rampe was pick #37 after the Swans had also picked up 2016 grand final player Xavier Richards at pick #29.

Rampe, who will play his 215^th game in the grand final, heads the games list from the AFL Class of 2012 from the Western Bulldogs’ Jack Macrae (208), Port Adelaide Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines (203) and Lloyd.

The remarkable story that is the Rampe/Lloyd rookie draft double is the best to come out of a draft add-on designed originally to give a players overlooked a second chance.

They are the first pair of 200-gamers taken by the same club in the same draft, clearly ahead of the next best pair – Bulldogs 2010 rookie draftees Luke Dahlhaus and Jason Johanissen. Dahlhaus played 154 games for the Dogs before moving to Geelong, where he has added 71 games, and Johanissen has played 176 games.

Lloyd, a 2013 NEAFL premiership player with the Swans, has missed only five games since his AFL debut in Round 5, 2014 and was a member of the losing grand final sides in 2014 and 2016.

He will be the 45^th ex-rookie in AFL history to play 200 games, the 30^th to do so at the club which drafted him, and the 6^th Swan after Heath Grundy (256 games), Kieren Jack (256), Brett Kirk (241), Nick Smith (211) and Rampe. Tadhg Kennelly (197 games) fell short of being another.

Three other ex-rookie 200-gamers were premiership players with the Swans after beginning their AFL career elsewhere – Darren Jolly in 2005 and Martin Mattner and Shane Mumford in 2012, when the Swans side included no less than six ex-rookies: Grundy, Jack, Smith, Mike Pyke, Mattner and Mumford.

Lloyd, winner of the Bob Skilton Medal in 2018 and 2020 after being equal runner-up in 2017 and before he was runner-up last year, is one of nine ex-rookies in the AFL to win their club championship twice.

The others are the Western Bulldogs Matthew Boyd, a three-time best and fairest winner, Sydney’s Brett Kirk, Fremantle’s Aaron Sandilands, Melbourne’s James McDonald, Brisbane’s Joel Patfull, Adelaide’s Rory Laird, Geelong’s Mark Blicavs, who will play in Saturday’s grand final, and ex-North Melbourne rookie Josh Gibson, who won the best and fairest in Hawthorn’s 2013-15 premiership sides.

In further confirmation of the Swans’ excellent record in the rookie draft, among 136 ex-rookies to play 100 AFL games, and 107 who did so at the club that drafted them, Sydney heads the list with 11 – the five 200-gamers, Lloyd, Kennelly and his 2005 premiership teammate Paul Bevan (129), Pyke (110), Harry Cunningham (161) and Tom Papley (140).

Rampe, Lloyd, Papley, Robbie Fox and Hayden McLean will fly the flag for the Swans rookie brigade in the grand final and are among 13 start-up rookies in the playing group – Cunningham, Sam Wicks, Joel Amartey, Hayden McLean, James Bell, Ben Ronke, Lewis Melican, the retiring Colin O’Riordan and the injured Sam Naismith are the others. The retiring Callum Sinclair also started his AFL career as a rookie at West Coast.