If you google the 1997 TAC Cup grand final you will get football’s first official look at a young man who would become one of the game’s all-time greats. It is video package that shows much of the last quarter of the North Ballarat Rebels win over the Dandenong Stingrays, the post-game presentation, and an interview with the player judged best afield.

It was the curtain-raiser to the 1997 AFL grand final and the MCG was filling up quickly as the 17-year-old match-winner stepped up to the stage to accept his medal.

Sporting a moustache, a goatee and a look that belied his youth, wearing a black and white Rebels guernsey carrying #29, he had kicked six goals in his team’s upset win and was an easy choice as best afield.

Meet Adam Goodes.

“I’d like to thank the Dandenong Stingrays for a good game, the North Ballarat boys … champions … and the coaching staff .. well-deserved,” he said.

Later, in an interview with Channel 7 boundary rider Adrian Barich, he was a little more effusive.

“I’m stuffed .. it was just great to get the win .. everybody played their best … we didn’t think of individuals … we knew if we played as a team we’d run them off their legs,” he said.

It was the final audition for an AFL career that began six months later on this day 21 years ago – 28 March 1999. Round 1 of the last season of the 20^thcentury as the Sydney Swans hosted Port Adelaide on a Sunday afternoon at the SCG.

Even then it had been quite a journey for a young man born on 8 January 1980 to Lisa May and Graham Goodes in Wallaroo, a port town on the western side of Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, 160km northwest of Adelaide.

His father was of English, Irish and Scottish ancestry, and his mother is an Indigenous Australian and a member of the Stolen Generation. He had two brothers – Brett, who played 15 AFL games with the Western Bulldogs from 2013-15, and Jake.

He preferred soccer as a youngster, and it wasn’t until he attended Merbein West Primary in 1986 that he began to play Australian football. And only then because there was no soccer club.

He later moved with his family to Horsham, Victoria, where he played football at high school and joined the Ballarat Rebels at 16.

Next step was the TAC Cup grand final and a one-way ticket to the Sydney Swans via selection #43 in the 1997 AFL National Draft.

That Goodes was taken so late in the draft was something of a misleading statistic because it was a draft in which each club could draft one 17-year-old. Most swooped early while the Swans, with selections #11, #40 and #43, chose to wait.

Six 17-year-olds went in the first 10 picks - Travis Johnstone to Melbourne at #1, Brad Ottens to Richmond at #2, Trent Croad to Hawthorn at #3, Luke Power to Brisbane at #5, Kris Massie to Carlton at #7 and Chris Tarrant to Collingwood at #8.

Four 18-year-olds completed the top 10 – Mark Bolton Essendon at #4, James Walker to Fremantle at #6, Chad Cornes to Port Adelaide at #9 and Shane O’Bree, Goodes’ captain at the Rebels, to Brisbane at #10.

At #11 the Swans made a judgement call. They took 18-year-old Jason Saddington.

With their next choice not until 40 they sat back for a long wait.

By selection #29 only three clubs had not taken a 17-year-old – Sydney, St Kilda and West Coast.

At #34 West Coast again passed over the opportunity, instead taking Andrew Williams.

As Rodney Eade, Swans coach at the time, would later reveal it was a toss of a coin at #43 between Goodes and 194cm West Australian 17-year-old David Antonowicz.

Eade said it was the call of then recruiting manager Rick Barham and Barham went with Goodes. Antonowicz was taken by West Coast with the following pick at #44.

While Goodes went on to make football history as a 372-game dual Brownlow Medallist and the Swans games record-holder Antonowicz played three games for the Eagles in 2000 and was delisted at the end of the 2001 season.

Michael O’Loughlin, later to become Goodes’ premiership teammate, best mate and business partner, remembered Goodes arriving at the SCG with long hair and a full beard.

"He looked every inch a man," O'Loughlin said years later. "But in fact he was just the opposite, just an immature and humble teenager and one not too clued up in the ways of the world on what it took to become an AFL footballer.

"He was very much a raw talent. He'd come to our game after having played soccer until he was 14 or 15 but he quickly knuckled down and the rest is history.”

Goodes inherited guernsey #37 from 1996 five-game Clinton King.

It was a number that had not been at the club until 1946, when Bert Lucas, later to become Swans captain in 1959, adopted it.

It had been the identifying tag for only 21 players in a total of precisely 300 games, most often by Clen Goonan (50 games), Richard Luke (36), Lucas (36) and Gerald Tagliabue (32), until Goodes made it his own. And it has not been worn by a Swans player since.

In AFL records, Goodes has worn #37 no less than 128 times more than the second-ranked #37 in League history, Fremantle’s Michael Johnson (244). Goodes’ 464 goals in #37 is also a clear League record, ahead of Angelo Lekkas’ 120 goals for Hawthorn.

Goodes went into a 1999 Round 1 Sydney side in which there were eight changes from the 1998 semi-final loss to Adelaide.

Scott Russell, a 1990 Collingwood premiership player, began what would be his only season with the Swans, while ex-Essendon pair Ryan O’Connor and Andrew Bomford began what would be a two-year stint in red and white.

Paul Kelly, whose 1998 season had been cut short by a knee reconstruction, returned to the side with youngsters Leo Barry, Stefan Carey and Robbie AhMat.

Missing from the final game of 1998 were Paul Roos (retired), Jason Mooney (Geelong), Brett O’Farrell (Hawthorn), Mark Orchard (Collingwood) and the injured quartet of Michael O’Loughlin, Dale Lewis, Jon Stevens and Brad Seymour.

The Swans side in notional positions for Goodes’ debut was:

B: Rowan Warfe, Andrew Dunkley, Jason Saddington
HB: Matthew Nicks, Ryan O’Connor, Stuart Maxfield
C: Scott Russell, Wayne Schwass, Andrew Bomford
HF: Troy Cook, Adam Goodes, Peter Filandia
F: Leo Barry, Tony Lockett, Jared Crouch
R: Greg Stafford, Daryn Cresswell, Paul Kelly (capt)
INT: Daniel McPherson, Troy Luff, Stefan Carey, Robbie AhMat.

There were 17 other AFL debutants across the League in Round 1 1999, including West Coast 250-gamer Andrew Embley, Essendon 232-gamer Mark McVeigh, brother of Swans champion  Jarrad McVeigh, and Essendon/Fremantle 208-gamer Mark Johnson.

Others Round 1 debutants included Adelaide 177-gamer Brett Burton, Hawthorn 102-gamer Kris Barlow and an 18-year-old Collingwood player who six years later would share another big career anniversary with Goodes on the biggest stage of all.

Yes, making his AFL debut on the same day was Nick Davis, whose four-goal fourth quarter heroics ensured an astonishing semi-final win over Geelong which two weeks later led to a 2006 grand final win over West Coast.

Coaching for the first time in Round 1 2009 were Tim Watson at St Kilda and Damian Drum at Fremantle.

The average AFL career of the other 19 Round 1 first-timers was 78.9 games and 5.5 years. Goodes played 372 games and 17 years.