Sydney Swans calling on Bloods spirit ahead of preliminary final against Fremantle

Sydney Swans fans will again climb aboard their emotional rollercoaster tonight when their battered club takes on Fremantle in a fascinating preliminary final.

The SCG will be full to the brim, tensions skyhigh, with the game, for all the wrong reasons , unexpectedly becoming one of the most intriguing match-ups we have seen in a final ... ever.

Anything could happen ... from a 10-goal belting to a one-point thriller, all results seem possible.

Despite being the home team, Sydney of course go in as rank underdogs against the minor premiers. Not only missing All-Australians in Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner and Nick Blakey , their captain Callum Mills will watch from sidelines after destroying his knee in the qualifying final against Brisbane .

Veteran Harry Cunningham — one of those wise heads and dependable soldiers — will also miss due to a calf concern.

It feels like mission impossible ... but so did their last final against back-to-back premiers Brisbane.

Since the bombshell scandal at the Pullman Hotel after their Round 23 game in Melbourne, the Sydney Swans Football Club has been bludgeoned, gouged and gored.

Scribes have called the club a liar, the culture a facade, accused it of selling a myth to their fans.

The circling pack has wanted blood — some still do — and the blows have been savage, some fair, some misguided.

But the pack didn’t get their blood. The club’s brand and reputation may have been hanging off the bone but, in a plot twist no one saw coming, they got the Bloods instead.

Quick history lesson: When Sydney was South Melbourne their nickname was the Blood-Stained Angels before they changed it to the Swans in 1933. The Bloods culture was reborn under former coach Paul Roos, Stuart Maxfield and Brett Kirk, and after their drought-breaking premiership victory in 2005, Kirk famously shouted, “this is for the Bloods” when he was on the podium.

Sydney may be just one game away from a grand final, but right now they are in rebuild mode ... a rebuild of a famous culture. The question is, how badly damaged is it?

Chairman Andrew Pridham said after the win against the Lions: “You certainly don’t fix what ain’t broke ... We’re very comfortable with the overall culture of the club; I think it’s very strong – no culture is perfect, and that’s been demonstrated, but it’s very strong.”

And in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald ahead of today’s final, star recruit Charlie Curnow described the culture as “great”.