If Errol Gulden and Braeden Campbell wanted to talk Rising Star nominations in the Swans locker room this week they’d find plenty of players to trade stories with. But they might want to steer clear of the captains and be careful around the coaching staff.

Gulden and Campbell, who have become the first players from the same club in 29 years to win a Rising Star nomination in the first two weeks of the season, have taken the total number of Swans players nominated for the coveted award to 33.

And no less than 12 of them are current teammates.

There’s Sam Reid, Isaac Heeney, Tom Papley, Will Hayward and Ben Ronke among the forwards, Jake Lloyd, Harry Cunningham and Lewis Melican in the defenders, and Callum Mills, Ollie Florent, Nick Blakey and Justin McInerney among the midfielders.

There’s also three players who were nominated at opposition clubs – Lance Franklin, Ryan Clarke and 2012 overall winner Lewis Taylor – plus backline coach Ben Mathews and Academy coach Jared Crouch.

They are all part of the club’s proud history in an award won by Adam Goodes in 1999, Dan Hannebery in 2010 and Callum Mills in 2016.

But in what is fantastic fodder for a tough trivia question, co-captains Josh Kennedy, Luke Parker and Dane Rampe and ex-captain turned forwards coach Jarrad McVeigh are not on the list.

Under Rising Star eligibility criteria, players must have played no more than 10 games and be under the age of 21 as at 1 January in the year in question.

Kennedy was never eligible in Swans colours after he played 13 games with Hawthorn in 2008-09 and turned 21 in June 2009.

Rampe was never eligible either. He debuted in 2013 at 22.

Parker was unlucky. In his second season in 2012 he was a key member of the Swans premiership side at 19. But he’d played 13 games in 2011 when Reid was nominated and Essendon’s Dyson Heppell was the overall winner.

McVeigh? His absence from the all-time list of nominees is odd given he was still only 19 when he completed a 20-game first season in 2004, when close mate Paul Bevan was nominated and Melbourne’s Jared Rivers took overall honours.

Still, in addition to the wins by Goodes, Hannebery and Mills the Swans have had 13 other players figure in the final vote count since full voting was made public in 1997.

Stefan Carey was equal 2^nd and Troy Cook equal 7^th in 1997, Jude Bolton 6^th in 2000, Tadhg Kennelly equal 8^th in 2002, Adam Schneider 5^th in 003, Bevan equal 4^th in 2004, Reid 6^th in 2011, Mitchell equal 4^th in 2013, Cunningham 8^th in 2014, Heeney 4^th behind Jesse Hogan, Patrick Cripps and Dom Sheed in 2015, Melican equal 7^th in 2017, Florent equal 5^th in 2018 and Blakey 8^th in 2019.

The club’s Rising Star nominations list is a strong pointer to a long and successful career, with 300-games Goodes, Michael O’Loughlin and Bolton and 200-gamers Crouch, Hannebery and Kieren Jack in this group. Plus Mathews (198), Tadhg Kennelly (197) and Lewis Roberts-Thomson (179).

Nineteen Swans nominees have played in a combined 37 grand finals for 15 premierships, and of 18 Swans nominees no longer playing only two failed to reach 50 games – and both left the club. Justin Crawford played 17 games for Sydney and 29 for Hawthorn, and Carey 45 games for Sydney and three for Brisbane.

Historically, the first Rising Star nominee in the first year of the award (1993) was St.Kilda ruckman Peter Everitt, later to play for the Swans in 2007-08. He’s now 46.

The Swans were the last club to win a Rising Star nomination. It wasn’t until Round 7 1995 that Michael O’Loughlin was the club’s first nominee and by then there had been 53. Essendon had seven.

The nomination of Gulden and Campbell puts the club 12^th on the all-time nomination list behind Brisbane (46), Melbourne (42), Essendon (41), Hawthorn (40), West Coast (40), Richmond (39), Bulldogs (38), Carlton (35), Fremantle (35), Geelong (34) and Port Adelaide (34). Adelaide (29), North Melbourne (29), St.Kilda (29), GWS (20), Gold Coast (18) and Fitzroy (6) complete the list.

But Sydney’s Rising Star hat-trick of Goodes, Hannebery and Mills sees them equal second on the overall winners list with Fremantle and behind only Brisbane (4). The Western Bulldogs and the Giants are the only clubs yet to have a winner.

The Gulden-Campbell double betters the best start to a season of Melbourne in 2004, when they had Aaron Davey nominated in Round 1 and Rivers in Round 3 and sets the Swans up for a crack at another club best – most nominations in a season.

Never have they had more than two nominations in one year, but Logan McDonald, similarly outstanding in the first two games, already looms as a hot contender.

Also eligible this year are Dylan Stephens, Chad Warner, the yet-to-play Will Gould and Category B rookies Malachy Carruthers and Marc Sheather. James Rowbottom has played too many games and Sam Wicks, Matt Ling, Joel Amartey and James Bell are too old.

Swans Rising Star nominations year by year have been: