David Schwarz in a relaxed frame of mind this week. Credit:Getty Images "The combination of power, strength, explosive speed and footy skill was irrepressible, really. There wasn't any player in the comp that had as good a combination as that," Lyon recalled this week. "I always rate Wayne Carey as the best I've ever seen, and he was on his tail and heading that way. I'm not saying he caught him, but he had that ability to dominate a game in a Carey-like manner, and once he got going he was nearly unstoppable." Schwarz arrived at the Demons from Sunbury in the dying days of zone-based recruiting. Griffiths, now a GWS executive, said the club was enthused to discover even when Schwarz, a fanatical basketballer, was just 15 that "there was nothing he couldn't do, the kid". "He was an excellent kick, both set shot and on the run, he was reckless in the air ... but it was his athleticism, his speed and his agility that set him apart ... which made him so difficult to play on," Griffiths said.

Schwarz against St Kilda in 1994. What made that athleticism so effective when Schwarz made the transition to AFL was that it was complemented by strength and footballing nous, particularly in regards to judging where a ball would land and how to evade tackles. Schwarz's self belief, never in short supply, surged in his first pre-season at Melbourne when he was matched against spearhead Darren Bennett in marking contests, and discovered their massive contrast in upper-body strength did not stop him toying with the muscle-bound Bennett. "I wasn't David Neitz upstairs, where he had big upper-body strength, but all your strength comes from your core ... because I played a lot of basketball I had a lot of core strength ... I knew that if your legs and a--- were strong you can't get beaten," said Schwarz, now 42. "I knew then that if I could do that to Darren I could do that to most players." Schwarz's first three years were tumultuous. He walked out on the club at the end of 1991 to pursue a lucrative job in an outback Northern Territory mining town, returned in 1992 and dazzled as a long-haired teen with a headband but stalled in 1993 due to late-diagnosed osteitis pubis and hernia problems. In 1994, however, he demonstrated what journalist Len Johnson described as "the converse of the Samson theory – he has less hair, but more power this year".

One of the most famous photos of Schwarz that year was a towering mark on the shoulder of St Kilda's Craig Devonport at Waverley Park, one of 16 he claimed in the match (and only the second-best he took on the day, he insists now). That spring-heeled trait was largely – but not totally – natural. It was honed through a series of basketball-related goals during high-school: touch the net, touch the backboard, touch ring, dunk a tennis ball, dunk a netball, dunk a junior basketball, dunk a senior basketball, two-handed dunk, alley-oop, reverse two-handed dunk. He also copied the training techniques of American volleyballers, by jumping off boxes to improve his spring. "My No.1 love was to sit on blokes' heads," Schwarz said, in regards to his rationale for spending so much time working on his jumping and marking, even at training to the ire of perennial launch-pad Jim Stynes. "My No.2 love was to actually make them look silly by being able to push them under the footy." Melbourne, 10th in 1993, started 1994 by winning its first five matches. But only one win from its next eight matches saw it fall out of the newly formed top eight. Its finals berth eventually hinged on beating the Swans away, a win fuelled by Schwarz's second-half dominance of defender Mark Bayes. Schwarz and then-captain Lyon fondly remember some of the sprays delivered by the latter to Schwarz's opponents about the extent of his dominance over them. Lyon remembers the spray he delivered a week later to Carlton's Peter Dean, about how it was getting "embarrassing" and that "this kid is making a mess of all of you blokes – and I'm not sure there's anything you can do about it".

"He'd grow an extra leg if you can pump him up a little bit. That was part of my job ... part-captain, part-psychologist," Lyon said. Besides Lyon, and the supporters for whom Schwarz had rapidly emerged as a favourite – he is still the No.1 ticketholder of the cheersquad – the biggest source of confidence came from his then-coach Neil Balme, who was named All-Australian coach in just his second year at the Demons. "I really enjoyed Neil Balme," Schwarz said. "It's not that I didn't enjoy Neale Daniher but when you've got a coach saying he loves watching you play, and giving you the amount of confidence that he did, I would have done anything for Neil Balme." During that year Schwarz was hailed by Essendon champion Tim Watson as "the game's latest superstar". After the victory over the Blues, which included a goal after an astonishing blind turn around Adrian Gleeson, he got an even bigger rap from Hawthorn great Dermott Brereton. "Schwarz should stand next to Carey for ability, but he has a bit to prove. So what better stage to make a legend for himself than in finals?" Brereton wrote.

In that semi-final against the injury-ravaged Bulldogs he was both too strong and too fast, not only for defender Danny Southern but also champion tackler Tony Liberatore, who at one point was left clutching air after a blind turn by Schwarz, a player 30 centimetres taller than him. That Schwarz was remarkably nimble thrilled respected TV commentator Sandy Roberts. The now Fox Footy presenter declared he "vividly recalled" comparing him to master ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev during the broadcast of the match. "Despite his size, his agility and versatility was that of someone who was perhaps far lighter and not as strong. The Ox was a big man and he was a very powerful man but, boy, he was an excitement machine," Roberts said this week. Schwarz said his habit of habitually weaving through packs and around opponents was learnt playing basketball which, remarkably based on current standards, he still played two or three times a week in 1994. He lamented current players generally are made to be too robotic to contemplate replicating the flair he was able to show with his coach's blessing. In the dying minutes of that final Schwarz was accidentally kneed in the head by the Bulldogs' Anthony Darcy, and was carried off with a mild concussion and a deep cut that required stitches. When coach Balme was asked why he had not taken Schwarz off as a precaution, as he had with Lyon, he replied: "I just like watching him."

Melbourne's season ended a week later in the heat of Perth. The disappointment of that exit soon faded as Schwarz embarked on a career-best pre-season training regimen. He was so motivated to capitalise on his performance in 1994, when he finished seventh in the Brownlow Medal, he successfully curtailed many of his vices. "I was flying. My skinfolds were at 40, I hadn't been on the piss, I'd been really looking after myself. I remember going into training drills saying 'Can we play competitive footy, for f---'s sake?' – I was just that keen!" Schwarz recalled. "And then I played a stupid practice match and popped a knee." The football world was astonished when Schwarz was back playing within four months and was just as nimble as before – until he wrecked his knee in his second game back. When there was a relapse in the following pre-season, causing him to miss all of 1996, Schwarz said he had no choice but to "go from an agile player to more of a brick-wall type". He was still a valuable contributor for the club thereafter, but said his enjoyment of the game was "a long way" from the peak of 1994.

"He's gone from The Gazelle to The Ox. That was just out of necessity," said Griffiths, who later became the club's football manager. Roberts, now in the 35th year of his sports commentary career, has pondered the "What if?" question about Schwarz, just as he has with other injury-ravaged players he has seen, most notably his eventual coach, Daniher. "It's almost like putting him in the same class as Neale Daniher: had wonderful talent, but because of the knees didn't get to see exactly where his football path was going to take him had he not had the knees," he said. "I'm not going to put him in the same class as a Gary Ablett or a Jason Dunstall ... but, boy, he was certainly in a class that was very highly rated. He was an extraordinary talent at the time. There's no question of that." Lyon, himself a highly-feted Demon whose career was curtailed by injury, remains adamant Schwarz "could have been anything", and was on track to feature highly in the recent era of the club, which has not won a premiership since 1964. "There was not a question in the world, not a single doubt in the world that he could have been the best player Melbourne had," he said.

Rather than lament the scenario of most people remembering him for his bullocking post-knees performance and well-publicised gambling addiction, Schwarz said he hoped to be "remembered for what I've done after I've finished footy", in helping other young people, including footballers, avoid the same mistakes he made. Having barely watched any of his performances, particularly his early-career ones, since his retirement in 2002 Schwarz relished the opportunity to do so recently – less so for his own marking and goalkicking exploits than for sightings of low-profile teammates, such as Dean Irving and Glenn Molloy, and instances where he had deftly provided easy goals for his teammates, such as against the Blues when he took the ball out of the ruck from a throw-in, spun and threaded a handball to Brett Lovett alone in the goal square. "I used to love creating. It was like in basketball. Shooting baskets is easy, a look-away pass to set up someone else is where the magic happens," he said. Apart from a period in 1997 and 1998 when he was heckled by the Melbourne Cricket Club members, as he struggled to overcome his third knee reconstruction, he looks back on the Demons fans as "just phenomenal" and is proud to be "best friends" with the couple who sponsored since his arrival, Richard and Denise Hattam. "The one thing I hope people do remember is that I gave 100 per cent – pre-1994 and post-1994," he said. "I wouldn't just die for my teammates, I'd die for my club. I think that was pretty evident, that I didn't walk off the ground too often disillusioned with the effort I'd put in."

Schwarz went into 1994 declaring, after his disappointing preceding year, it was a "make or break" year for him. In the end he did both.