Isaac Heeney will play his 200^th game on Friday night in a statistical measuring point that confirms there is no clear answer to one popular Swans question and that there is only one answer to another question.

It’s wonderful fodder for the timeless debate that is part of life in the AFL. Is the multi-talented Heeney best value playing in the midfield or up forward? And who is the best Swan of all-time?

Heeney will become the 37^th Swans 200-gamer in the preliminary final against Port Adelaide at the SCG, and the 681^st of 13,172 AFL players all-time in an exclusive-plus group of 5.17% of the playing fraternity since 8 May 1897.

The massively popular Swans star will reach this major milestone having amassed 3625 possessions, kicked 258 goals, and polled maybe 70 Brownlow Medal votes in 249 games. Plus whatever he has against the Power.

Of course, the true medal votes tally won’t be known until this year’s medal count is done. But for the sake of the debate give him 25. It’s probably ‘unders’ after he’s been arguably the most dominant player in the game in 2024, but 25 gives him a total of 71.

So where does the prodigious all-sports talent from the Cardiff Hawks rank statistically against the great Swans? And where is he best suited?

The statistics say categorically that to classify Heeney as a midfielder or a forward  would be selling him short. Because his numbers are elite in both roles.

Despite having played more as a forward, especially in his early years, Heeney he will reach 200 games with more possessions at the same mark than all but 11 Swans since the introduction of statistics in 1965.

The top 15, with Heeney’s 200th game statistics to be added, is:

1. Josh Kennedy – 5377
2. Jake Lloyd – 4935
3. Dan Hannebery – 4920
4. Daryn Cresswell – 4676
5. Luke Parker – 4603
6. Paul Kelly – 4200
7. Kieren Jack – 4087
8. Dennis Carroll – 3811
9. Mark Browning – 3799
10. Brett Kirk – 3692
11. Stephen Wright – 3686
12. Isaac Heeney – 3625 (*)
13. Jarrad McVeigh – 3437
14. Jude Bolton – 3419
15. Dane Rampe 3353

Seven members of the 200 Club are not included because they played in the pre-statistics era – Skilton, Ron Clegg, Jack Graham, Jim Cleary, John Rantall, Mark Tandy and Vic Belcher.

Skilton played 139 games prior to 1965. In his next 61 games he averaged 29.4 possessions despite a string of niggling injuries and a full year out of the game when he was stranded on 198 games due to a snapped Achilles tendon.

His 29.4 average equates to a 200-game tally of 5880 possessions, which would put him at the top of the list. But in reality, his total would have been higher still given he won three Brownlow Medals and nine Swans best and fairest awards in his first 198 games.

There is no uncertainty when it comes to the 200-game goal tally of the same players. Skilton is No.1 and Heeney, despite his split role, is No.4. The top 15 are:

1. Bob Skilton – 367
2. Tony Morwood – 358
3. Michael O’Loughlin – 324
4. Isaac Heeney – 258
5. Stephen Wright – 214
6. Ryan O’Keefe – 201
7. Adam Goodes – 197
8. Jack Graham – 185
9. Daryn Cresswell – 170
10. Paul Kelly - 168
11. Luke Parker – 156
12. Jarrad McVeigh – 153
13. Kieren Jack – 139
14. Ron Clegg – 138
15. Mark Bayes - 137

Like the possession counts, the 200-game votes of some players in the Brownlow Medal are imprecise due to varying voting policies and the lack of game-by-game voting records until 1984. There was no medal from 1897-1923, and from 1924-29 only one vote was awarded in each game.

But using all available information, and proportional calculations where necessary, the list for the top 15 vote-getters among the Swans 200-gamers, with Heeney on a notional 71 votes, is:

1. Bob Skilton – 172.8
2. Josh Kennedy – 122
3. Ron Clegg – 109.4
4. Dan Hannebery – 106
5. Luke Parker – 98
6. Paul Kelly – 90
7. Brett Kirk & Isaac Heeney (*) - 71
8. Adam Goodes – 69
9. Jack Graham – 68
10. Kieren Jack – 61
11. Daryn Cresswell & Jude Bolton – 54
12. Ryan O’Keefe & Dennis Carroll 47
13. Jim Cleary – 37.3

So, there are two clear conclusions to be drawn from the key statistics …. Skilton, captain of the Swans Team of the Century and the player after whom the club championship medal is named, is unquestionably the No.1 Swan all-time. And Heeney is equally adept as a midfielder or a forward, and if he had specialised would be among the elite of the elite in either.

Heeney will go into his 200^th game coming off arguably the best performance of his career in the qualifying final against GWS on 7 September, when it was almost as if there was two of him ... the dominant midfielder and the match-winning forward. Because he was both.

Aged 28 years 138 days on Friday night, Heeney will be the ninth-youngest of the Swans 200-gamers behind Dan Hannebery (27/98), Tony Morwood (27/111), Adam Goodes (27/182), Luke Parker (27/253), Jude Bolton (28/23), Jarrad McVeigh (28/29), Mark Bayes (28/54) and Michael O’Loughlin (28/57), with Mark Browning (28/198) completing the top 10.

Rod Carter (34/231), Andrew Dunkley (33/295) and John Rantall (33/142) have been oldest.

With a 127-1-71 win/loss record going into his 200^th game, Heeney is fifth on the ‘winningest’ list.

At the top is the Swans first 200-gamer, Vic Belcher. He posted his double-century 106 years ago in the 1918 grand final, when South Melbourne trailed at every change before kicking 3.2 to 0.3 in the final term to beat Collingwood by five points.

This gave Belcher a 136-3-61 record that sits above that of Kennedy (133-2-65), Hannebery (131-2-66), Nick Smith (128-2-70) and Heeney. Completing the top 10 are Dane Rampe (127-1-72), Heath Grundy (126-2-72), Parker (126-1-73), Kieren Jack (125-3-72) and Jake Lloyd (124-76).

Like Belcher, Jake Lloyd also celebrated his 200^th in a grand final, but without the result. The Swans were beaten by Geelong in 2022 in front of the biggest Swans 200^th-game crowd – 100,024 at the MCG. Heeney will be the Swans fourth 200-gamer in a final after Tony Morwood reached this milestone in the 1987 qualifying final.

The man of the moment will be the third Swans #5 to 200 games after John Rantall and Ryan O’Keefe, taking #5 to the top of the 200-game list. The full list is:

#2 – Vic Belcher, Mark Tandy
#3 – Jarrad McVeigh
#4 – Dan Hannebery
#5 – John Rantall, Ryan O’Keefe, Isaac Heeney
#6 – Andrew Dunkley
#7 – Dennis Carroll, Harry Cunningham
#8 – Daryn Cresswell
#11 – Mark Browning, Stuart Maxfield
#12 – Josh Kennedy
#13 – Rod Carter
#14 – Bob Skilton, Paul Kelly
#15 – Kieren Jack
#19 – Michael O’Loughlin
#20 – Jim Cleary
#21 – Tony Morwood, Leo Barry
#23 – Ron Clegg
#24 – Jude Bolton, Dane Rampe
#25 – Ted Richards
#26 – Stephen Wright, Luke Parker
#27 – Jack Graham
#28 – Jared Crouch
#29 – David McLeish
#30 – Mark Bayes
#31 – Brett Kirk
#37 – Adam Goodes
#39 – Heath Grundy
#40 – Nick Smith
#44 – Jake Lloyd

Mark Tandy, a 1918 premiership wingman named in the Swans Team of the Century, wore six different jumper numbers in his 207-game career. Having debuted in 1913, the last season without jumper numbers, he wore #25 in 1912 (9 games), #27 in 1913-15 (49), #11 in 1917 (15), #27 in 1918-19 (32), #26 in 1920-22 (47), #2 in 1923-25 (49) and #12 in 1926 (3).

He is listed under #2 because he wore it in his 200^th, when he was the first of three Swans to celebrate the milestone at the spiritual home of the club at Lake Oval.

Significantly, Heeney will be the 14^th Swan to play his 200^th at the SCG after Browning was the first in 1985. That Browning was the 9^th Swan to 200 games is confirmation of the changing face of the game.

After five 200-gamers in the club’s first 73 years – Belcher (1918), Tandy (1925), Cleary  and Graham (1947), and Clegg (1958) – Skilton (1970), Rantall (1977) and McLeish (1979) followed in the 1970’s and Browning (1987) and Rod Carter (1989) in the 1980s.

Carter, who played 76 games with Fitzroy before joining South Melbourne, was the first of just four ‘imports’ to play 200 games in red and white. The others have been Stu Maxfield (89 games at Richmond), Ted Richards (33 games at Essendon) and Kennedy (13 games at Hawthorn).

Wright (1990), Carroll (1991) and Bayes (1995) followed in the 1990’s, before it became  a mini-procession after the turn of the century.

Almost fittingly, Kelly (2000) was the first of 21 200-gamers in the 21^st century before Cresswell (2001), Dunkley (2002), O’Loughlin and Maxfield (2005), Goodes and Crouch (2007), Jude Bolton (2008) and Kirk (2009) in the next decade. Since then it’s been O’Keefe (2010), Richards (2015), Grundy and Jack (2016), Kennedy, Smith and Hannebery (2018), Parker (2020), Rampe and Lloyd (2022) and Cunningham and Heeney (2024).

Only once have two Swans celebrated their 200^th game for the club together – Smith and Kennedy in Round 9, 2018 against Fremantle at the SCG when Jake Lloyd, in his 101^st game, had 41 possessions and a goal for his first three-vote haul in the Brownlow Medal in a 59-point win.

And the most bizarre 200^th game?  It was Parker’s double century when a paltry 2238 saw Sydney lose by 34 points to West Coast at Carrara during the Covid times of 2020.

Dennis Carroll holds the record for most possessions by a Swans player in his 200^th game with 32 from Skilton (30), O’Keefe (29), McVeigh (28) and Kirk (27). Kennedy and Jack shared the record for most goals at three, while Graham, Skilton, Kelly and O’Loughlin kicked two apiece.

Carroll and Jack are known to have picked up three Brownlow Medal votes in their 200^th, Kirk two votes and O’Keefe one. And they may have been others earlier in times when full records were not kept.

The Swans have a 17-19 win/loss record in 200^th games, with Kelly enjoying the biggest win in his 200^th game – by 71 points over West Coast at the SCG in 2000. It was a trade-off for having endured an overall 200-game record of 74-3-123, equal with that of Skilton (74-3-123) and ahead of only Rantall (63-1-136), McLeish (69-1-130)) and Bayes (74-2-124).

Sadly, Morwood endured the toughest 200^th game result – a 99-point loss to Hawthorn at Waverley in the 1987 qualifying final, when Browning celebrated his 250^th game.

In a measure of the enormity of John Longmire’s influence, Heeney will be the 14^th Sydney player to play his 200^th game under the veteran coach. Paul Roos (8), Col Kinnear (3) and Rodney Eade (3) are next.

Heeney has played in a club record nine Swans 200^th games. In his second game he helped mark Richards’ 200^th, and has similarly celebrated with Grundy, Smith, Kennedy, Hannebery, Parker, Rampe, Lloyd and Cunningham. He was denied a 10^th when he was ‘managed’ for Jack’s big milestone in 2016.

Significantly, on Friday night Heeney will run out not only as the Swans’ 37^th player to reach the 200-games, he will also be the first QBE Sydney Swans Academy athlete to achieve the milestone.