A total of 1411 players have played for the South Melbourne/Sydney Swans and 95 players have played for the Gold Coast Suns, but only one player has played for both clubs.
Nick Malceski, who played 176 games for the Swans from 2005-2014 and 34 games for the Suns from 2015-16, will be the common dominator when the clubs meet for the eighth time at the SCG on Saturday afternoon.
After two years playing for the Suns against the Swans this time Malceski will be among the Suns coaching staff, headed by former Sydney coach Rodney Eade.
Having retired at the end of last season with a year to run on his playing contract when his knees finally gave out, Malceski is a development coach at the Gold Coast.
But despite the fact that this week he'll be in the opposition camp, Malceski will forever hold a special place in the hearts of Swans fans. All for one incredible goal.
It was 32 minutes 6 seconds into the final quarter of the 2012 grand final when Malceski, the man with the lethal left foot, accepted a hurried handball from Dan Hanneberry and snapped truly over his right shoulder from about 25m.
As the ball floated towards the goal Dennis Cometti said in commentary “Is that the grand final?” before adding “The Swans are premiers!” after it cleared the goal line.
“What a snap! What a celebration! What a grand final!” Cometti added.
That goal and that premiership will always be the standout moment of Malceski's time at the Swans, which included 17 finals and three grand finals.
“The 2015 grand final was a fantastic highlight but what I value most was just being part of the club. It’s a great club … very family-oriented. They raised me and I’ve still got a lot of friends there,” he said.
In particular, Malceski keeps in touch with former backline comrades Heath Grundy, still going strong at 31, and Rhyce Shaw, now filling a development coaching role at the Swans. But no doubt this weekend he’ll enjoy catching up with plenty of old mates.
Malceski's first official meeting with the Swans on Saturday will be at 12.55pm at the SCG when the Reserves do battle in the curtain-raiser.
It will be a re-union of the Swans' two most famous knee reconstruction victims – Malceski and Alex Johnson, who will play his second comeback game.
But it won't be anything new. Malceski, a three-time reconstruction man and a pioneer of the revolutionary LARS method, has followed closely Johnson's remarkable journey, offering his ongoing support and touching base with him before his comeback game in Canberra.
“He (Johnson) is unbelievably strong … he’s a very resilient that bloke,” Malceski said.
Malceski, a 2014 All-Australian who four times finished top 10 in the Swans Club Champion award, underwent three knee reconstructions – all as a result of pre-season mishaps. One was on his left knee and two were on his right knee.
He had his first reconstruction in 2004 even before he’d played an AFL game, preferring the traditional method, and in 2008 was the first player in AFL history to undergo the Ligament Augmentation and Reconstruction System (LARS) procedure.
He famously played 86 days after his third reconstruction in 2011, returning in Round 9 after a second LARS procedure, which involves the use of artificial ligaments instead of the traditional method of ligament reconstruction.
Eventually, though, it all caught up with him last October when he needed a pain-killing injection just to go for a run.
"I figured then it was going to be pretty hard to get through another year," he said, identifying the moment he knew time as an AFL player was up.
As luck would have it, the development role at the Suns opened up, and together with wife Laura and their two young children Malceski is living very happily on the world-acclaimed tourist strip.
Why the Gold Coast? “At the end of 2014 they offered me a deal and I decided it was a good opportunity to grow in different areas and move towards life after football,” he explained.
In a measure of how quickly things change in football, a third of Malceski's teammates in his last game for the Swans in the 2014 grand final are no longer playing at the club.
Adam Goodes, Ted Richards, Mike Pyke, Rhyce Shaw and Ben McGlynn have retired, while Craig Bird is at Essendon and Lewis Jetta is at West Coast.
Nineteen players have debuted for the Swans since he left, starting with Isaac Heeney, Dan Robinson, Toby Nankervis and James Rose in 2015 before George Hewett, Callum Mills, Tom Papley, Callum Sinclair, Michael Talia, Aliir Aliir, Jack Hiscox, Harry Marsh and Jordan Foote followed in 2016, and Oliver Florent, Robbie Fox, Will Hayward, Nic Newman, Jordan Dawson and Lewis Melican did likewise in 2017.
A further 13 players who were at the Swans with Malceski in 2014 are no longer at the club – Shane Biggs (Western Bulldogs), Tom Derickx, Matthew Dick, Jordan Lockyer, Tim Membrey (St Kilda), Patrick Mitchell, Tom Mitchell (Hawthorn), Toby Nankervis (Richmond), Ryan O’Keefe, Xavier Richards, Lewis Robets-Thomson and Tommy Walsh.
One thing that hasn’t changed, and isn’t about to change any time soon, is the bushy growth on Malceski’s face.
“There’s no story to it – Shawry and I grew one together in 2012 and I’ve just kept it,” he said, admitting his wife isn’t a fan of the trademark beard.
