Dane Rampe will join Sydney Swans royalty on Sunday, moving into the top 10 on the club’s all-time games list.

The 34-year-old defender will play his 257th game against Port Adelaide at the SCG to go past  Heath Grundy and Kieren Jack, who were teammates in his AFL debut in Round 1, 2013.

Rampe will slot into 9th spot all-time behind  Adam Goodes (372), Jude Bolton and Jarrad McVeigh (325), Michael O’Loughlin (303), Luke Parker (293), Ryan O’Keefe (286), Josh Kennedy (277) and John Rantall (260).

The former rookie has missed just 33 games since his debut and played every one of the Swans’ 23 finals during his time.

In a history that includes 1457 players since the establishment of the VFL/AFL, it is a special achievement for player #1378. And a rarity.

Excluding 2011-12 expansion clubs Gold Coast and GWS, Rampe will be the 12th current player to rank inside his club’s top 10. Others are:

1 – Scott Pendlebury (Coll), Travis Boak (Port)
2 – Steele Sidebottom (Coll)
4 – Dayne Zorko (Bris)
5 – Taylor Walker (Adel), Ollie Wines (Port)
6 – Nathan Fyfe (Frem)
7 – Michael Walters (Frem), Mitch Duncan (Geel), Luke Breust (Haw)
10 – Tom McDonald (Melb)

Also, Essendon’s Todd Goldstein is third on the games list at North, and Parker, 5th at Sydney, and Jack Darling, 2nd at West Coast, are now at North.

Set to turn 35 on 2 June, Rampe is the 9th-oldest player in the AFL this year behind Scott Pendlebury (37), Todd Goldstein, Travis Boak (36), Dayne Zorko (36), Patrick Dangerfield 35), Callum Ward (35), Lachie Keefe (35) and Taylor Walker (34).

05:24

Rampe 250: Resilience personified

We sat down with Dane Rampe ahead of his 250th game in the red and white, becoming 13th player in club history to reach the milestone.

10 Things to Know About Dane Rampe

  1. He is the only ‘Dane’ to wear the red and white of the Swans, and one of only two among 13,214 AFL players all-time. The other is Collingwood’s 258-game Brownlow Medallist Dane Swan. So next week he will equal the 2011 Brownlow Medallist for most games played by a ‘Dane’.

  2. He’s one of five ex-rookies in the top 20 on the Swans games list, with Grundy, Jack, Jake Lloyd (254) and Brett Kirk (241), and 12th in the AFL all-time for ex-rookies behind Luke Breust (302), Matthew Boyd (292), Dean Cox (290), Zach Tuohy (288), Stephen Milne and Michael Firrito (275), Mark Blicavs (274), Aaron Sandilands (271), James McDonald (264), Jarrod Harbrow (262) and Danyle Pearce (258), and equal with Grundy and Jack.

  3. He is equal 6th for wins at the Swans with 164, behind Adam Goodes (216), Jarrad McVeigh (203), Jude Bolton (184), Parker (180), Josh Kennedy and Michael O’Loughlin (171) and level with O’Keefe.

  4. He is 7th in finals for the Swans behind Goodes and McVeigh (28), Bolton and Parker (26) and O’Keefe (24), and ahead of Kennedy, Jack and Dan Hannebery (22).

  5. He is 19th in all-time possessions for the Swans.

  6. He is 10th in games at the SCG with 110, equal with Kennedy and Jake Lloyd and behind Goodes (143), O’Loughlin (136), Bolton (128), Mark Bayes (125), Daryn Cresswell (123), McVeigh (122), Parker (121), Paul Kelly (116) and Andrew Dunkley (115).

  7. He has kicked nine goals in 256 games – all singles – after what by his standards was a positive glut early in his career. He got on the goalsheet in games 13-25-32-38-70-91 before going 120 games without a goal. He broke the streak in his game 211, and last year went back-to-back for the first time in games 248-249. His ninth goal in game #249 was his first finals goal.

  8. Winner of the coveted Bob Skilton Medal in 2019 as Sydney Swans Club Champion, he finished top 10 another six times. He was 9th in 2014, 6th in 2015, 5th in 2016, 6th in 2018, 4th in 2020, 9th in 2022
  9. Rampe began his career in jumper #43, inheriting it from Matthew O’Dwyer, and wore it 23 games in 2013 to rank 4th for the Swans behind Lewis Melican (84), Mark Browning (77) and Norm McKenzie (36), then wore jumper #50 in Round 10, 2017 – his 101st game overall – when the AFL celebrated 50 years since the 1967 referendum via which First Nations peoples won the right to vote.

  10. He’s played 227 games in jumper #24 to rank 2nd at the Swans behind only Jude Bolton (325) and is 8th in the AFL all-time behind Gary Dempsey 329, Bolton, Don McKenzie (266), Peter Knights (264), Stephen Wallis (261), David Swallow (240) and Joe Misiti (234).