We continue our countdown to the biggest event in the Club’s history - the 25 year Anniversary Dinner. Follow the highs and lows of each year the Swans have been in Sydney every day on sydneyswans.com.au leading up to the event. Here is 2002...

The greatest full forward in the history of the game came out of retirement going into the 2002 season, as the Sydney Swans once again secured the services of Tony Lockett, this time via the preseason draft.

Also, as ‘Plugger’ had done several seasons previously, St Kilda’s two-time leading goalkicker Barry Hall joined the Sydney Swans, thus ensuring that going into 2002 Sydney’s forward line was likely to be a handful for opposition defenders.

Lockett’s comeback, however, was to be short-lived. He played in the first game of the season – a loss to Brisbane at the SCG – and in doing so sustained a leg injury which kept him out of the team for eight weeks. Returning to the senior team in round 10, he only played a further two games before announcing his retirement effective immediately.

In the first twelve rounds of the season, the Swans registered three wins, eight losses and one memorable draw against St Kilda, to sit 14^th on the ladder at the mid-season break.

Lockett was not the only player to retire after the round 12 match, as Wayne Schwass also chose that week to bow out of football, after 282 senior games of football, a Premiership with North Melbourne, and winning the Swans’ Best and Fairest award in 1999.

The retirements of Lockett and Schwass also coincided with a change of senior coach at the Sydney Swans, as Paul Roos took charge of the team as caretaker coach for the last 10 games of the 2002 season.

His first game as senior coach saw the Swans victorious by 77 points over Fremantle at the SCG. In fact the Swans won the six of their last 10 games under Paul Roos, to finish in eleventh position on the ladder with nine wins, 12 losses and a draw.

Despite finishing a game and a half out of the final eight, the Swans could boast the fifth-best percentage in the competition, a fact which was attributable to a series of extremely close losses – three by two points, one by six points, and three more by between 10 and 13 points.

At season’s end, the team lost two more experienced players, as both Andrew Dunkley and Paul Kelly announced their retirements from football.

In a career spanning 1992 – 2002, Andrew Dunkley had played 217 games for the Swans, while Paul Kelly played 234 games between 1990 and 2002, winning four Club Champion awards and a Brownlow medal along the way.

The team sent them off with a round 22 win over Richmond at Telstra Stadium, where the crowd bade an emotional farewell to the reliable full-back and the inspirational captain.