What does Joel Amartey have in common with 1980s high-flyer Warwick Capper, 1935-36 South Melbourne grand final team member Roy Moore, one-time AFL goal-kicking record holder Harold Robertson, and ex-Geelong captain Lindsay White?

At first look it’s inconceivable that the 24-year-old Swans forward could have anything in common with four players from the first half of the 20^th century. But the statisticians say otherwise.

After Amartey’s outstanding nine-goal blitz in the Swans’ 42-point win over the Crows in Adelaide on Saturday night, he is now among the only five Swans players from 1452 all-time to kick nine goals inside their first 41 AFL games for the club.

The contribution of Sydney’s #36 was extraordinary considering he did not have a single possession at quarter-time, when the Swans trailed 2-3. And then he kicked four goals in the second quarter, and another four in the third, before adding his ninth midway through the final stanza.

In a performance which captured the imagination of even non-Swans fans, Amartey kicked 9-1 from 10 kicks, and had a career-best three contested marks and seven marks inside 50.

The “Amartey Alliance”, as we’ll call the quintet of which the emerging Swans key forward is the latest member, is an elite group that began with Moore, the son of 1909 South Melbourne premiership player Herbert Moore. In his 40^th game at 22, he produced something extra special when he kicked nine of his side’s 10 goals against Fitzroy at Lake Oval in Round 16, 1937.

Now 87 years on, it is a performance that sees Moore share with ex-Collingwood great Dick Lee the all-time record for most goals by one player in a side which had only two goal-kickers.

In Round 12, 1941 Robertson, brother of Austin Robertson Snr and uncle of AFL Hall of Famer Austin Robertson Jnr, produced a similarly outstanding performance in what is the club’s equal-biggest all-time win.

With a best of three goals in his first 40 games, a 24-year-old Robertson kicked 14 – seven in the last quarter – as South obliterated St Kilda 29.15 (189) to 2.6 (18) at Lake Oval.

It was the first time a South Melbourne player had kicked double-figures, and it saw Robertson top the previous League record of 11 kicked by Geelong’s Jim McShane in 1899 and Collingwood’s Dick Lee in 1914 and hold it until 1929 when Collingwood’s Gordon Coventry kicked 16.

Lindsay White, an accidental Swan, became the third member of the “Amartey Alliance” when he kicked 10 for South Melbourne against St Kilda at Princes Park in Round 3, 1942. 

It was White’s third game in red and white and the 20^th career game for the 20-year-old, who first and foremost was a Geelong player. Only because of travel restrictions during World War II did he play two seasons at South.

White kicked 67 goals in his 1941 debut season with the Cats and had kicked back-to-back bags of seven in his first two games for South. He followed his 10 with a 12 two weeks later, added 11 in Round 15, and kicked nine in the preliminary final loss to Essendon.

It was 44 years before the Swans logged the next “Alliance” member when the high-flying Capper, playing his 38^th game at 22, kicked 10 against Richmond at the SCG in Round 8, 1986.

And a further 38 years before Amartey completed the group and became the 16^th Swans player all-time to kick nine or more goals in a game.

If qualification Alliance membership stretched to 45 games Larry Spokes would have qualified in 1949. Having kicked just 24 goals in his first 44 games, he kicked nine against St Kilda at Junction Oval in Round 13.

Bob Pratt, the Swans’ all-time leading goal-kicker, was 57 games into his glittering career before his first bag of nine, while Bob Kingston, who had debuted for South at 16 in 1961 to become the seventh-youngest Swan all-time, kicked nine in his 68^th game in 1965.

Other players who began their career at South and kicked nine or more goals in a game for the club were Laurie Nash (76^th game in 1937), Fred Goldsmith (78^th game in 1957), Ted Johnson (85^th game in 1928), Bernie Evans (130^th game in 1985), and Jack Graham (215^th game in 1948).

Three other imports have kicked nine or more goals in a game for the Swans – Richard Osborne in his 195^th game overall, Tony Lockett in his 199^th game and Lance Franklin in his 200^th.

Amartey’s jump to nine from a previous best of four was bettered only by Robertson and Spokes. Robertson’s previous best in 40 games was two (although he followed his 14 with seven the next week), while Spokes’ previous best in 44 games was three.

But for a breakout game in a breakout season Amartey is No.1 as he continues to deliver on rookie pick #28 in 2017.

It was a draft in which the Swans had drafted Matthew Ling at #14, Tom McCartin at #33, and Ryley Stoddart at #53 in the AFL Draft, and Patrick Styles at #14 in the Rookie Draft before they turned to Amartey, who in two hours on Saturday night kicked as many goals as he did in 14 games in his TAC Cup season playing as a forward/ruck.

Amartey was a late starter to the sport that is now his profession, having originally played soccer before turning first to basketball and then Australian football.

His diverse sports aptitude followed an upbringing at Beaumaris in suburban Melbourne via Mentone Grammar and the Sandringham Dragons, like fellow Swan Ollie Florent.