The man who captained the Swans to their first premiership in 72 years has showered in praise Sydney skipper Josh Kennedy ahead of his 200^th Club game.

Kennedy will play his 200^th Swans game when Sydney takes on Fremantle at the SCG on Saturday night.

Brett Kirk led the Swans to the 2005 AFL flag alongside co-captain Barry Hall and is now a midfield coach at the Club.

Kirk hailed Kennedy’s captaincy ahead of his milestone match.

“He leads by actions, he’s super consistent and you always know what you’re going to get from him,” Kirk said.

“He’s grown considerably over the last 18 months since he was given the captaincy.

“It was a really rough start to the year last year and we saw some real growth in him and I think we’re continuing to see growth in him in his awareness and his reading of the group.”

Kennedy’s career began at Hawthorn after he had signed as a father-son selection at the 2006 National Draft.

His dad John Kennedy Jr had played 241 games for Hawthorn and won four premierships with the club in the 1980s, while John Kennedy Sr captained the Hawks in the 1950s and later became a three-time premiership coach.

But the Swans captain played just 13 games for the Hawks across 2008 and 2009 and joined Sydney at the 2009 National Draft.

He became Sydney’s sole skipper in December of 2016 after co-captains Jarrad McVeigh and Kieren Jack had passed the baton on.

But Kirk’s last season in Swans colours was Kennedy’s first and says the leader Kennedy has become is a polar opposite to the 21-year-old who first stepped foot into the Club.

“He was very quiet and unassuming,” Kirk said.

“He was a brute and a very big guy as he is now, but he was very polite in the way he went about his football. He actually sort of took a step back rather than a step forward.

“But you could slowly see him start to develop over the season and once he got that confidence – and I think it was just a sense of belonging – he grew considerably.”

The three-time All-Australian is a captain of few words but leads with a fierceness at the contest unrivalled competition-wide.

He has ranked in the top three in most contested possessions per game every completed season since 2011.

Contested beasts Patrick Dangerfield (2012, 2015, 2017) and Gary Ablett (2012, 2013, 2014) did so three times in that period, while Fremantle’s Nat Fyfe (2014, 2015) did so twice.

Kennedy topped the count in 2012, 2013 and 2016 and yielded his strongest return (17 contested possessions per game) in 2016 as the Swans booked a ticket to the grand final.

The three-time Bob Skilton Medallist has averaged 26 touches per game across his 11 seasons and more than half are contested (14).

The Swans have long prided their game on unreserved toughness at the contest and Kennedy, Luke Parker and Dan Hannebery lead the way among the current 22.

Ferocity around the ball was the cornerstone of Kirk’s stellar 241-game career and the former skipper said Kennedy’s impact at the contest was immense.

In fact, he likened Kennedy to a rough-and-tumble workhorse at a coal plant.

“He owns the coalface of the contest,” Kirk said.

“If you think about someone driving a steam train he puts his overalls on, gets his shovel and puts coal at the fiercest of heat.

“He is one of the best inside midfielders of the competition and has been for a long time. What he does is physically and mentally demanding but he does it week in and week out.

“He knows what he’s good at and he does the basics really well. That’s what he’s been doing for a long time – win the ball inside, provide a really strong contest, be fierce around the ball, absorb the pressure and absorb the heat and be able to dish it out to our outside run-and-carry players.

“He works hard on his craft, he’s really strong and powerful and he’s hard to move. He has a strong ability to be able to stand up in tackle and reads the ball really well. He gets some heavy attention but works through it and keeps delivering for our team week in and week out.

“He’s a pro like most of the guys who have been involved in the system for a long time. They know how to get the best out of themselves from a mental and physical point of view. You’ll see him out on the track working on reading the ball off the hand at stoppages and continuing to look for ways to get better.”