Notwithstanding the pre-season comp, it’s more than 17 years since Carlton last defeated the Swans in Sydney . . . and Adrian Gleeson, the club’s current director and 1987 premiership player, was out there when the siren signalled a famous win for the visitors.

Not that it’s fresh in “The Bear’s” memory. “Was it a day game or night game?,” he asked. “I picked up 34 touches didn’t  I.”

For the record, Carlton defeated Sydney by 44 points, 21.13 (139) to 13.17 (95), in what was the seventh round of the 1993 season. It happened on the afternoon of Sunday, May 9, at the SCG. Justin Madden broke the banner for what was his 200th senior appearance for the Blues, while Tim Powell completed his senior debut and Brendon Parker turned out for what would prove his last senior game.

Curiously, current Carlton Senior Coach Brett Ratten was named in a back pocket for that match, in which acting captain Craig Bradley amassed 36 touches, with Gleeson, Jon Dorotich and Rohan Welsh all booting three.

Though Gleeson believed that the crowd factor may have contributed to Sydney’s dominance (“and a full SCG is second only to the MCG for atmosphere” he believes) the 176-game former Carlton rover doesn’t place much credence on the succession of losses to Swans in the seasons since.

“If you hark back to the premiership year of 1995 we dropped the Sydney game, and why that happened when we were up and running I can’t really say,” Gleeson said.

“You can’t underplay the Swans either - they’ve been a successful team and club for a long time - but when you look at where we were as a team in the first few years of the decade we weren’t beating anyone, so what this current Carlton group has done against everyone else in the past three years is rewritten the record books.”

The club’s resident statistician Stephen Williamson notes that Carlton has never before participated in a final at ANZ Stadium and the only currently-listed players to have represented the club at the venue are the injured Ryan Houlihan and Simon Wiggins, together with Bret Thornton and Jarred Waite - the latter having completed his senior debut there in the opening round of 2003.

It’s also worth noting that Swans have dropped their past five matches at ANZ Stadium, with the run beginning in the ninth round of 2009.

The last time South Melbourne/Sydney defeated Carlton in a final was the first semi of 1918.