Among 1,413 players who have worn the colours of the Sydney Swans/South Melbourne through the club’s history of 122 years and 2,415 games, only 42 have kicked seven goals or more in a game. Or 2.97%.

At the other end of the scale, 423 (29.94%) never kicked a goal and 872 (61.71%) didn’t kick seven goals in their career.

The 2.97% who have kicked seven or more goals in a game are the truly elite. And heading this list is the elite of the elite. Bob Pratt, the club’s all-time leading goal-kicker, and Tony Lockett, the game’s all-time leading goal-kicker.

Pratt kicked seven or more goals for the Swans a club record 32 times in 158 games, or 21.77% of the club’s total of 147 games of seven-plus goals. Lockett did so 21 times in 98 games, or 14.29% of the total.

Between them the two mega champions are responsible for more than a third of the Swans total games of seven of more goals.

The newest and 42^nd member of the ‘seven-plus’ club is a player who will quite probably be shaking his head in disbelief for a long time after kicking seven goals in just his third game of AFL football on Friday night. And in his first game at the MCG.

Ben Ronke, 20 years 144 days old, wrote his name into the club record books with a match-winning haul against Hawthorn.

He kicked the Swans first five goals through to the 6-minute mark of the second quarter, including four goals from four kicks in the first term, and added two goals in the last quarter, including the sealer in the closing seconds.

Playing 90% game time, the young man whose name is pronounced simply “Ronk” not “Ronky” as the spelling might suggest, finished with nine kicks, two marks, two handballs and 10 tackles.

A product of the 2017 Rookie Draft from the Calder Cannons in the TAC Cup and still listed as a Rookie in 2018, Ronke was the first player in AFL history since the League started recording tackles in 1990 to kick seven goals and have 10 tackles in the same game.

He was the first player to kick seven in his first game at the MCG since Scott Cummings kicked eight for Essendon there in 1994, and the first Swan since Barry Hall in 2002 to kick four goals in the opening quarter.

Interestingly, the young man in the #25 jumper worn previously by fellow “seven-plus” club members Laurie Nash, Peter Reville, Hayden McAuliffe and Barry Round, lived right up to the generous description of him written in the 2017 AFL Prospectus soon after he had been drafted.

It said of Ronke: “…an inside midfielder with elite speed who gets in and out of traffic well … his ability to hit the scoreboard is elite.”

In summary, and in tribute to Swans recruiting chief Kinnear Beatson, it said: “When the Swans rookie you, you’re every chance. Keep your eye on him”.

Twelve months on, the 2018 AFL Guide said of Ronk: “Battled injury early last year but booted 14 goals in 12 NEAFL games as a small forward and impressed with his tackling inside 50. Another pre-season campaign should see Ronke move into the midfield, where he won a best and fairest at the Calder Cannons”.

While coach John Longmire will have gone to great lengths to remind the 182cm 77kg youngster that it’s only one game, and that it will only get harder from here, there is no denying that Ronke has claimed a small slice of a significant chapter in Swans history.

He is the youngest Swan to kick seven goals in a game since Silvio Foschini kicked seven against Fitzroy aged 18 years 212 days at the SCG in 1982, and the seventh youngest Swan all-time to kick seven in a game behind Foschini, Tony Morwood (19 years /32 days in 1979), Graham Teasdale (19 years /246 days in 1975), Pratt (19 years /250 days in 1932), Lindsay White (20 years /125 days in 1942) and Ron Paez (20 years /161 days in 1952).

Among the 42 players to have kicked seven or more goals in a game for the Swans, only one has done so in fewer games than Ronke. Simon Minton-Connell booted seven for Carlton against Collingwood in his second AFL game.

John Roberts matched the Ronke feat when he kicked seven goals for Sydney against Essendon at Waverley in 1980 in just his third game, while the record books also show Max Piggott, who played only eight games in 1946-47, kicked seven goals in his sixth game in 1947.

The unheralded Piggott debuted 10 days short of his 26^th birthday after twice serving with the Australian armed forces in New Guinea during World War II, and once being sent home due to malaria. He played only two games after his seven-goal bag initially due to injury and later a mid-season retirement.

Teasdale, who kicked six goals on debut for Richmond in 1973, kicked eight goals in his ninth AFL game and his third game for the Swans in 1975 after joining the club as part of a deal that sent John Pitura to Richmond.

Among players moving to the Swans after starting their careers elsewhere, Lindsay White (1942), George Dougherty (1945) and Robert Dean (1976) topped seven goals in their first Swans game, while Lockett (1995) and Barry Hall (2002) did so in their second, after Minton-Connell had kicked seven in his third Swans game in 1992.

Like Ronke, most members of the seven-plus club have their own remarkable story that captivate football historians and make wonderful trivia conversation and bar room chat.

The first player to kick seven goals in a game for the Swans was Chris Laird, who did so in his 14^th game against Melbourne at the MCG in Round 2, 1919.

Laird spent five seasons at South Melbourne and is best known for his performance in the 1918 grand final, when, playing in a forward pocket, he kicked three goals including a soccer effort in the last minute to clinch a five-point win over Collingwood.

Harold Robertson, who also played in the 1918 premiership team, kicked the Swans’ second and third bags of seven-plus goals to add an extraordinary touch to a career that, at face value, looks like any other career of 93 goals in 64 games.

Having kicked 45 goals in his first 40 games, and never more than three in a game (and even that only once), full forward Robertson booted an astonishing 14 goals against St Kilda at Lake Oval in Round 12, 1919.

This bettered the previous League record of 11 goals held at the time by Collingwood’s Dick Lee and Geelong’ Jim McShane.

Seven of Robertson’s record-breaking 14 goals came in the final quarter as South kicked 29.15 (189) to 2.6 (18) to win by 171 points. Almost 100 years on that remains the club’s biggest win, and the equal sixth highest score.

Just for good measure, Robertson kicked seven goals the following week, followed by five in Round 14. They were the only three times in his career he kicked more than three goals.

Ted Johnson topped seven goals seven times from 1923-28, heading the club’s goal-kicking each year, while Austin ‘Oscar’ Robertson, brother of Harold, kicked seven or more goals six times from 1929-31.

Staggeringly, of the next 33 hauls of seven goals or more for the Swans from 1932-36 no less than 30 belonged to the incomparable Pratt. And in the three games in which Peter Reville (1933) and Laurie Nash (twice in 1934) broke this extraordinary domination Pratt had kicked seven or more goals as well.

Pratt opened the 1934 season with hauls of 8-10-15 in the first three rounds and in a period of six weeks running kicked 8-7-9-8-11-12 from Round 9-15 on his way to an all-time record season total of 150 goals that was equalled by Hawthorn’s Peter Hudson in 1971 but has never been broken.

Among Pratt’s 32 hauls of seven or more goals he kicked 10 goals or more eight times, with a career-best of 15 against Essendon at Lake Oval in 1934 which stood as the club record for 61 years.

Nash, also an Australian Test cricketer, kicked seven or more goals three times in 1934 and twice in ’37, and, at 35, added a sixth in 1945 after time out of the game due in part to war service.

Lindsay White, having kicked 67 goals in his debut season for Geelong in 1941, wrote his own chapter in Swans goal-kicking history in a brief stint with the club in 1942-43 prompted by the Cats’ temporary withdrawal from the competition due to World War II travel restrictions.

White kicked 111 goals in 25 games for South in two years, including seven bags of seven or more and a career-best 12 in ’42 when he topped the League goal-kicking. He returned to Geelong for the start of 1944, and nearly 75 years later ranks sixth on the Cats’ all-time goal-kicking list.

George Dougherty played only 10 games for the Swans after switching mid-season to Lake Oval in 1945 but twice he kicked seven goals in a game in red and white after failing to do so even once in 163 games over 12 years for Carlton, Geelong and Footscray.

South stalwart Jack Graham, a member of losing grand final sides in 1936 and ’45, had a similar wait for membership of the ‘seven-plus club’. Having played mainly as a ruckman, he had never kicked more than five goals in a game through his first 214 games.

But in his 215^th game in 1948 against Geelong, where son Ricky and grandson Ben later played, Graham booted 10 goals. He retired 12 games later.

Bob Skilton kicked five goals in his second game in 1958 but had to wait until his 58^th game for membership of the ‘seven-plus’ club, while Peter Bedford kicked four and five goals in his first two games but didn’t top seven goals until his 71^st game.

Robert Dean, 121 games without a seven-goal haul at Collingwood, kicked eight in his first game for South in 1976, while the high-flying Warwick Capper seven times kicked seven goals or more through the 1980’s to join Ted Johnson and Lindsay White in equal third spot on the list of most seven-goal hauls. Minton-Connell joined this group in the early ‘90s.

And then came Lockett.

Having topped seven goals in a game 53 times in 183 games for St Kilda ‘Plugger’ added 21 similar efforts for the Swans for a record career total of 74 that leads Gordon Coventry (63), Jason Dunstall (58), Gary Ablett Snr (45), Peter McKenna (45), Peter Hudson (44), Doug Wade (40) and Pratt (32) on the AFL’s all-time list.

In his 16^th game for the Swans Lockett kicked 16 goals against Fitzroy at the Western Oval to break the Swans’ all-time record and fall just two shy of Fred Fanning’s all-time League record of 18 set in 1947, and one behind Coventry’s 17 in 1930, and Dunstall’s 17 in 1992. He equalled Coventry’s 16 in 1929 and the 16 of McKenna and Hudson in 1969.

Barry Hall kicked seven goals in a game five times in his eight years with the Swans from 2002-09, and since then Lance Franklin has added six occasions to join the truly elite in club goal-kicking history.

Adam Goodes has had the longest wait in Swans history to join the “seven-plus” club, reaching that mark for the first and only time in his career in his 226^th game in 2008.

Meanwhile, Barry Round went 135 games at Footscray without reaching this mark and kicked seven for the first and only time in his 131^st game for the Swans in 1982 – that’s a total of 266 games before he booted a haul of seven.

This also made Round the oldest player to kick seven goals in a game for the Swans. Still three years from retirement, he was 32 years 111 days at the time.

Only four times in 2,415 games have two Swans players kicked seven or more goals in the same game.

In Round 18, 1933, when South Melbourne beat Geelong 23.17 (165) to 6.10 (46) at Lake Oval, Pratt and Reville kicked seven apiece. Depending on how many behinds they kicked, which are not recorded, both might have out-scored the opposition on their own.

In Round 9, 1934, when South beat North Melbourne 20.18 (138) to 7.14 (46) at Arden Street, Pratt kicked eight and Nash seven. Pratt beat the opposition on his own.

Five weeks later, in Round 14, 1934, Pratt (11), Nash (7) and Reville (4) were the only South goal-kickers in a 23.17 (165) to 6.10 (46) win over Geelong at Lake Oval. Again, Pratt beat the visitors on his own. And possibly Nash.

And in Round 4, 1940, when South beat Hawthorn 23.13 (145) to 16.10 (106) at Lake Oval, Owen Evans kicked eight and Jock McKenzie kicked seven.