Lewis Roberts- Thomson is standing outside Ravesi's, a swish café above Bondi Beach, when I first spot him. He's tall and grinning with a mop of surfie blond hair and has his bicycle beside him.

We decide where to sit (in the shade looking at the waves) and start talking about his family. I knew the Roberts-Thomsons were originally Tasmanian - a family of gentlemen sportsmen, quite a few doctors among them.

Lewis' father left the family farm in Tasmania as a young man to try his luck in Queensland. Lewis was born in Brisbane, but brought up in Sydney.

He's a Sydney boy. The sunshine of the city's northern beaches is in him. He says he loves all sports but asked to name one says surfing.

He went to Shore, a member of the Sydney GPS, and made the first XV in year 10. This meant playing before crowds of 10,000, the old boys coming to watch. He played in the No.5 guernsey or, as he says for those who don't know rugby union, he used to play in John Eales' position.

Lewis is a bit like Eales - tall, modest but with the physical confidence that comes from playing sport at a high level. In manner, he's understated.

When I ask him the best player he's played on, he says, "Jonathan Brown goes all right."

I look across and see his grin. The course of events that brought him to the Swans begins with what his father still insists was a "coincidence".

He invited his son to have a kick with him after work when he was 14. The oval over the road where they went had a footy team training on it. Lewis Roberts- Thomson had a kick and liked it. Then his father asked the man taking training if Roberts- Thomson could join in. He was soon representing NSW in under-age sides.

The Swans recruited him in 2001 under a rule that gave them a concession pick for a kid within 50 kilometres of their ground.

Brisbane used the same rule to try to get Nick Riewoldt and failed. The Swans went for Roberts-Thomson and got him.

He grins at the thought of being compared to Riewoldt, too. I think the joke he's conveying is that they're champions and he's Lewis Roberts-Thomson.

There was a time when Lewis came out of defence and people shouted, "Lewis!", like he was a bit of a comedy act. Recently when I interviewed Brett Kirk, the Swans' co-captain, I ask him to describe Lewis as a footballer.

"To be honest," he says, "my first memory of Lewis was that he was awkward."

His body was conditioned to a different kind of ritual combat. But Kirk also saw that he was "so willing to learn". And on the field, says Kirk, Roberts-Thomson is fearless. Coming from Kirk, that's a compliment.

Kirk also agrees that Roberts-Thomson was one of Sydney's best in the first half of the 2005 grand final.

I ask Roberts- Thomson what he remembers of that game. First, he remembers how Paul Roos calmed him and the other young players before the match, telling them to go out on to the ground, to enter the stadium and have a kick, to absorb the day. They might not get the chance again.

When the match started what I saw was Roberts-Thomson's sporting intelligence. He knew where the ball was going to be. He read the play better than his opponent and capitalised on each and every opportunity like a tennis player making passing shots and hitting winners.

At half-time, Roberts- Thomson remembers Roos taking him and another defender into the medical room. Craig Bolton was on a table, blood all down his jumper having cotton wool jammed up his nostrils.

Roos told them he wouldn't be able to rest either of them in the second half. The most he could offer was occasionally switching their opponents.

Roberts-Thomson also featured in the final climactic moment of the game. He is in the famous picture - a pack of six or seven rising to meet the ball.

Roberts- Thomson is exhausted. You can see it in his stoop. He's made it to the contest and is trying to spoil. Team-mate Tadhg Kennelly has a handful of Ashley Sampi's guernsey. Roberts-Thomson says, "It's funny. All I could think was I had to stop this ball from being marked. But someone marked it."

Someone certainly did. Bounding in from the left and marking in the manner boys once did during school lunchtimes across the country - that is, with flair and daring - was Leo Barry.

I ask Roberts-Thomson what Barry's like. He thinks about that for a while and then says, "He's special."

After a while, talking to Roberts-Thomson, it sinks in that he comes from Sydney in the way Buddha Hocking came from Geelong and Dougie Hawkins came from the western suburbs of Melbourne.

He always barracked for the Swans. His whole family does. Asked what the Swans mean to him, he says simply, "I'm part of the Swans family. I'm grateful for the opportunities and enjoyment they've given me".

He tells me that in his first year, when the Swans were connected to VFL club Port Melbourne, he got to play with one of his early heroes, Plugger Lockett.

I ask him what Lockett was like. He thinks and says, "He was just a quiet man".

I ask him about Kirk. Roberts- Thomson says Kirk has "a special energy".

"I'm lucky. His locker's next to mine. I get to talk to him every day".

Roberts-Thomson has played in two grand finals. In the first, I thought he had the better of Eagles' centre-half for ward Ashley Hanson. In the second, I thought Hanson had the better of Roberts-Thomson.

Roberts-Thomson admits he found the second grand final harder. His advantage the first time, he says, was that he didn't know what to expect. Besides which, Roberts- Thomson rates Hanson as a player.

"He's stronger than he looks and he makes good position. He suits the style they play."

Then Roberts- Thomson asks me what I think about the Swans' style of play. I say I'd think about playing Adam Goodes centre-half forward. Give them something new up forward. Something different.

He frowns. "That'd mean three talls (Goodes, Hall, O'Loughlin) on the forward line," he says. He's against the idea. The opposition would run off them.

Roberts-Thomson sees the game the Sydney - the Paul Roos - way. In the era of accountable football, Roos has been one of the best accountants going round.

Modern footballers don't have much time for the press. Having taken an hour of Roberts-Thomson's, I thank him and prepare to go. He says he's going nowhere for the next hour. He's just going to sit and look at the surf. But he tells me he likes hearing stories so I tell him about the Bloodbath grand final of 1945 between Carlton and South Melbourne and the part played in it by Laurie Nash.

Roberts-Thomson has heard of Nash. He tells me he was in the Swans' team of the century. When he finally gets up to leave it's to attend a birthday party for Sydney teammate Kristin Thornton.

They've put it on as a surprise for Thornton because he's going to miss the season after doing his knee.