If history tells us one thing about Wednesday's AFL Draft it is that the only certainty is that there will be no certainties.

A top-10 selection does not guarantee a top-class long-time player. And similarly, just because a player is taken late in the draft, it does not mean he won’t be a top-flight choice.

Among 152 players drafted by the Sydney Swans at the National Draft since its inception in 1986, only 22 have played 100 senior games for the club. And of them only five were top-10 picks.

Indeed, the 100-gamers were spread right across the draft spectrum: four from 11-20, three from 21-30, three from 31-40, one from 41-50, four from 51-60, one from 61-70 and one from 71-80.

Mathematically, the Swans' best draft choice in history has been selection number 43 in 1997, which secured games record-holder, dual Brownlow medallist and 372-gamer Adam Goodes.

It was a value-plus choice given that among nine first-time draftees chosen at number 43 in the first 11 drafts there were five players who never played at the top level, one who played one game, a 16-gamer and two 63-gamers, including Jason Heatley who was cast aside by West Coast after three games and had to rely on a second-chance call-up to St Kilda to add another 60 matches.

Further endorsing the value of the Goodes pick was the fact that Jordan Lockyer, chosen by the Swans with pick 43 in 2011, and the club’s only other selection 43, did not play a game.

But the Goodes draft in 1997 was a compromised draft. It was when each club was allowed to pick one 17-year-old. While most clubs picked their youngster early, the Swans chose over-agers Jason Saddington and Freddie Campbell at numbers 11 and 40 respectively, before Goodes – knowing Goodes would still be available.

In a pointer to how the draft process has become more precise in the last decade, selection 43 has redeemed itself, producing 206-game Bulldog Lindsay Gilbee, 224-game ex-North captain Andrew Swallow, plus seven current players: Bulldog Easton Wood, West Coast’s Tom Barrass, Carlton’s Mitch McGovern, Melbourne’s Corey Wagner (delisted by original club North), Geelong’s Esava Ratugolea and Brisbane’s yet-to-play Connor Ballenden.

So, mathematically, the best-value Swans picks in an uncompromised draft were 325-game dual premiership player Jude Bolton, who was pick eight in 1998, and recently retired 325-game champion Jarrad McVeigh, who was pick five in 2002.

Staggeringly, though, there was only one top-10 choice among the next 10 best-value picks: 40, 56, eight, 56, 30, 40, 29, 64 and 21.

Selection 64 in 2002 was Nick Malceski, who starred in Sydney’s 2012 premiership and is now on the coaching staff at Gold Coast.

The 100-gamer chosen highest in the National Draft was 155-gamer Troy Luff, pick 74 in 1994. And he was a second-time recruit, although strictly speaking a first-time draftee.

Originally recruited by the club from Nelson Bay, Luff had played 32 games in five years when de-listed at the end of the 1993 season. It was only after his late re-selection in 1994 that he really hit his straps, producing an outstanding 1996 finals series and starring in a losing side in the Grand Final.

The most-recent 100-game national draftee was Isaac Heeney, who joined the club via the QBE Sydney Swans Academy.