“I see it but I don’t believe it.”

With these eight words Anthony Hudson, commentating on Channel 10, described one of the most extraordinary 15 minutes of football in AFL and Sydney Swans history. And he did it beautifully.

It was unbelievable. Football theatre of the highest order. Magic, marvellous and mercurial. And, even more importantly, an integral part of a Swans fairytale that was 74 years in the making.

It was Friday 9 September 2005 at the SCG. The Swans were on the verge of elimination from the finals series.

With about 15 minutes to play in a dour, low-scoring affair they trailed Geelong by 23 points. Having kicked only three goals in 100 minutes it was mission impossible. Or was it?

Enter Nick Davis.

The 25-year-old Swans half forward/midfielder kicked four goals in the final quarter to snatch a three-point victory that will forever rank among the greatest in club history.

So special, in fact, that in 2012 it was included in the Swans Heritage List.

At the time coach Paul Roos described it as the without doubt the best quarter of finals football ever played by anyone.

And yet that was only part of the story.

Two weeks later, after Davis had single-handedly averted almost inevitable extermination from the 2005 premiership race, the Swans stood in a glorious huddle in the middle of the MCG holding aloft the club’s first premiership since 1933.

Leo Barry had taken that incredible last-minute mark, which prompted another immortal commentary line from Stephen Quartermain when he said “Leo Barry you star”.

Coach Roos had dedicated the win to all those long-suffering Swans fans when he screamed “Here it is” just before raising the premiership cup.

It is one of those very special moments not just in sport but in life.

Yet all that would not have happened if Davis had not worked his 15 minutes of semi-final magic.

Sydney, captained by Barry Hall after first-choice skipper Stuart Maxfield had blown out his knee in Round 6, had finished the home-and-away season third on the ladder with a 15-7 win/loss record.

After losing the qualifying final to second-placed West Coast by four points at Subiaco they found themselves in a knockout semi-final against Geelong, who had finished sixth at 12-10 and beaten Melbourne by 55 points at the MCG in an elimination final.

The biggest SCG crowd of the season of 39,079 turned out knowing that win or lose it would be the last time for the season they would see the Swans play. And all but a handful of Geelong supporters will remember it fondly.

The Cats led 2.6 to 2.2 at quarter-time and 5.8 to 2.6 at halftime. One goal apiece in the third quarter left the visitors up 6.11 to 3.12 at the last change, and when David Johnson kicked the first goal of the final term Geelong led by 23 points.

From a ball-up with about 14 minutes to play Davis accepted a beautiful tap from ruckman Jason Ball about 30m in front of goal. He ran to space on his right, and hooked it back across his body for a goal. Geelong by 16 points.

Four minutes later, after Ryan O’Keefe unleashed a massive torpedo from beside the centre circle, Davis out-bodied Geelong defender Joel Corey and marked on his chest. He converted from 20m straight in front. Geelong by 10 points.

Seven minutes later, after accepting a slick handball from Tadgh Kennelly, he again found space in a cluttered forward 50m zone and snapped truly across his body from 40m, just avoiding the desperate lunge of Geelong defender Darren Milburn. Geelong by three points.

For what seemed like an eternity both sides threw themselves at the ball as if their lives depended on it. But neither could score.

After a frantic scramble in and around the Sydney goal mouth there was a ball up about 15m out, slightly towards the left pocket, which has since been viewed on U-Tube almost 200,000 times.

The late Clinton Grybas, commenting on 3AW, called it beautifully: “Final play of the season, ball at the top of the goal square. Nick Davis. Nick Davis. Davis has done it for Sydney. It’s grand larceny. It’s highway robbery. It’s Ronnie Biggs. It’s Ned Kelly. It’s the greatest thieving effort you will ever see.”

Ruckman Ball had tapped the ball expertly his left into the path of Davis running towards goal. He didn’t have time to take clean possession, and was on the wrong side of the goal for a right-footer, but miraculously he juggled it and controlled it well enough to snap truly with his left foot.

It floated directly over the goal umpire’s head. Sydney by three points.

There was enough time just for a ball-up in the centre, but the game was over. Sydney had won. Davis was a hero among heroes. And among a Geelong side Tom Harley and Henry Playfair, now football boss and assistant coach at the Swans, were shattered.

How well does Davis remember his four-goal feast? “Like my kids’ names,” he said with a laugh, before recounting the famous period of play.

“We were a pretty structured team under Roosy and we liked to keep things pretty tight. But at three-quarter time we were well down so he told us to try to open things up a bit. The idea was to try to get the ball on the outside. Bally (Jason Ball) did that, and I was lucky enough to get on the end of them,” he said, setting the scene.

“Our forwards … Hally, Mickey O (O’Loughlin), Amon (Buchanan) and Schneids (Adam Schneider) … it was a pretty dangerous group.

“Matthew Scarlett generally played on Hally. He (Scarlett) and Tom (Harley) were Geelong’s two key defenders so we tried to push them up the ground a bit to leave space over the back, and happily for me it worked OK.

“Bally was really important. He got his hand on it three times and I think he even took the intercept mark in defence to set up the second goal. I get a lot of credit but his role was crucial.”

The first goal? “As I said, we’d planned to get the ball on the outside. I was set up there to provide defensive cover but when it fell loose it just opened up for me and I was able to snap it. It was down near the players’ race where we did most of our goal-kicking practice so I was pretty comfortable,” said Davis, ranking this No.3 of his ‘fab four’.

The second goal? “Again, the plan was to get Scarlett and Harley outside the defensive 50, and leave us little blokes isolated. It came in long and I was able to mark it and kick a regulation set shot. Pebs (O’Keefe) always says it was a kick to advantage, but I reckon he just kicked it as far as he could,” he said laughing, ranking this No.4.

The third goal?  “I was trying to clog up the defensive 50 at the stoppage but when Bally got it down we got a chance. It spilled to Tadgh (Kennelly) and he gave me a handball about 40m out, and I managed to snap it accurately,” he said, ranking this No.2

And the match-winner, for which Davis is and always will be best known?

“The ball had been in our forward 50 for a while and we were probably lucky we didn’t scrap it through for a behind because that would have given them the ball and we might not have got it back,” Davis re-counted.

“There were so many important little things in the lead-up but the good thing was we had 18 blokes set up in the right spots.

“Schneids and I had been playing together for about three years and we knew what we had to do. We chatted quickly. I said: ‘do you want to go?’ and he said ‘no, you go’ so he put a block on, I took off, the lane opened up and Bally was good enough to get it down to me.

“I probably had more time than I thought but somehow I got it onto my left foot. It felt like it left my foot pretty well but I lost sight of it. When I found it again I saw the goal umpire standing in the middle of the goals as it went over his head and I knew it was good.”

A famous 15 minutes that will never be forgotten.

Davis had gone into the semi-final in excellent form. He’d kicked an equal career-best five goals against North Melbourne in Round 21, followed by four against Hawthorn in Round 22 and three against West Coast in the qualifying final.

His four match-winning goals against Geelong made it the most productive four-week run of his 168-game AFL career in terms of goals.

He played 97 games and kicked 150 goals for Sydney from 2003-08 after 71 games and 85 goals at Collingwood from 1999-2002.

That Davis would be rewarded for his final quarter semi-final heroics with a grand final win two weeks later was the end of a tough premiership quest.

In 2002 his season ended in a losing grand final for Collingwood against Brisbane. In 2003 his season ended in a losing preliminary for Sydney against Brisbane. And in 2004 his season ended in a losing semi-final for Sydney against St Kilda which he missed through injury after playing in an elimination final win over West Coast a week earlier.

Finally, it was fourth time lucky in 2005.

It was a triumph that in a weird sort of way was destined to happen after he had grown up around the club as a kid. But it took its time.

The son of Tasmanian-born Craig Davis, who played 163 games for Carlton, North, Collingwood and Sydney from 1973-88, Nick was born in Melbourne but moved to Sydney with his family aged four.

He was eight when his father, having retired from the AFL in 1983 and spent time as a development coach and runner at the Swans, made a surprise comeback in the red and white aged 33 in 1988.

But despite being old enough to remember his father’s comeback he played rugby league as a schoolboy in a city when the AFL was still building a strong footprint.

Only in his mid-teens did he really focus his attention on AFL, but he showed enough potential to attract plenty of attention from recruiters heading into the 1998 AFL National Draft.

Among the would-be suitors were Collingwood, where his father had played 102 games from 1979-83. And in a draft in which Des Headland went to Brisbane at selection #1 and Sydney took Nic Fosdike (#3), Ryan Fitzgerald (#4) and Jude Bolton (#8) in the first round, Nick went to the Pies as a father/son choice.

That Nick was eligible for this pathway to Collingwood was in itself a story.

Four years before Nick was born Craig had suffered a pre-season head injury at Carlton in 1976 and was diagnosed with deformed blood platelets. He did not play again that year.

But after ignoring medical warnings in 1977 he had joined North Melbourne, and after 10 games in two years at Arden Street he made his way to Victoria Park.

In his first season in the black and white stripes he kicked 88 goals, three less than Footscray Coleman Medallist Kelvin Templeton and two behind Richmond’s Michael Roach.

He kicked 251 goals in 102 games for Collingwood, and when he left the club he was 12^th on their all-time goal-kicking list and a real club favourite.

Not just was he a very good player but he was a hugely popular and admired figure. And it was almost a given that Nick would follow the same path.

Initially, he did. He debuted as an 18-year-old and played 16 games in his first season in 1999, but he was never comfortable in the spotlight at Collingwood.

Two days into the 2000 pre-season he returned to his family in Sydney terribly homesick, and it was two weeks before he eventually went back to Melbourne to pick up his career.

He eventually found is feet and became a regular and reliable player, extending his original two-year contract by a further two years, and starring in the 2002 preliminary final win over Adelaide.

But soon after he told Collingwood he wanted to go home, and in a last-minute trade in a draft which saw Sydney claim Jarrad McVeigh, Sean Dempster and Nick Malceski he was swapped to the Swans for pick No.21.

Davis kicked 32 goals in 24 games in his first season with the Swans in 2003, but injuries in 2004 had him questioning things, and even contemplating a switch back to rugby league.

For two days mid-season the club did not know of his whereabouts.

What was that all about? “I just took a couple of days off,” he said, grinning.

Was he serious? “I have been known to make a lot of outlandish comments … it was a long time ago. But I was good mates with a lot of NRL players, so maybe.”

But a good finish to the season kept him going, and in 2005 everything fell into place.

He missed rounds 8-9-10 with a hamstring injury but otherwise played every game and ranked third in club goal-kicking with 38 behind only Hall (80) and Mick O’Loughlin (52).

And, at last, he did what his father had been unable to do. Win a flag.

At 18 Craig Davis was a member of Carlton’s 1973 losing grand final team against Richmond in just his fifth game. And in the days of the dreaded ‘Colliewobbles’ he suffered three consecutive grand final losses with Collingwood to Carlton in 1979, Richmond in 1980 and Carlton in 1981.

Nick took the family’s grand final tally to seven when he played in Sydney’s 2006 grand final loss to West Coast, when he was one of his team’s best with three goals.

He played only three games for the Swans in 2008 after being dropped for a period and was brought back during Hall's seven-match suspension for striking Brent Staker.

Davis’ last game for the Swans was the controversial Round 6 draw against North Melbourne, when Sydney had an extra man on the field for 90 seconds near the end.

A subsequent knee dislocation ended his time at the club and in the AFL.

He had a crack at becoming an NFL punter, attending a punting kicking draft camp and later having a stint with the San Diego Chargers, where fellow Australian Darren Bennett was a cult hero.

He worked hard on his punt kicking and even his field goal kicking, which was a throw-back to his rugby league days, but after about two and a half months in the US he returned to Australia and AFL.

In 2011, after a discussion with Swans CEO Andrew Ireland, who had played with Craig Davis at Collingwood, he re-joined the Swans to work with the Academy. The following year he took on the extra job as match day runner.

Six years on, now 37, married to Anna and father to daughters Tayla (12) and Jordan (8), he still fills an important development coach and skill development role at the club.

He shares with Craig Davis membership of the Swans father/son club, with both having played for in the red and white.

He’s got it over his old man in games, goals and premierships, and most other things, but despite 97 games in the famous Swans #2 jumper there is one statistic on which he will never match his father.

Despite playing only nine games with the Swans in his 1988 comeback Craig Davis holds two club records.

Not only is the #60 jumper he wore the highest number ever worn by a South Melbourne/Sydney player, but his nine games in it is also a club record.

And had Steven Hedley not played one game in #60 in 1983 Davis would have been the only player ever to wear it.