As Collingwood prepares to take on Sydney on Saturday night in a match critical in terms of the 2013 finals structure, it will also mark 10 years to the month since another similarly important clash between the two clubs.

That match - the Round 21, 2003 clash - was not only the first game between the Magpies and the Swans at ANZ Stadium (it was known as Telstra Stadium back then), it remains the highest attended AFL match played outside of Victoria.

Someone with a penchant for hyperbole thought to dub it "the biggest home-and-away match" in history in the lead-up, but a decade on - even if the game didn't reach spectacular heights - it is remembered as an event for the crowd that it drew.

The two teams have played at the venue every year since 2003 - included a preliminary final last year - but none of those matches between them (or any other clubs for that matter) has surpassed the 72,393 fans who attended that 2003 clash.

The closest in terms of crowds at the venue came later in 2003 when 71,019 witnessed the preliminary final between Sydney and Brisbane as the two teams fought out for the right to play Collingwood in the Grand Final.

Much to the Magpies' frustration, then and now, it was the Lions who prevailed, as they also did the following week.

Old sparring partners, Collingwood president Eddie McGuire and his Sydney counterpart Richard Colless, will be opposed to each for the last time this Saturday night, as the Swans chairman is stepping down at the end of the season.

A decade ago their uneasy relationship was used to try and sell this first game between the two sides at Homebush, with Colless calling McGuire his "evil twin brother" as he presented the Channel Nine personality with a Swans jumper with No.9 emblazoned on its back. The Pies president fired back, saying: "it's the first time a Sydney Swans jumper has looked any good."

The pair did agree that the AFL was on the right track in their plans to factor in future Sydney-Collingwood games at the venue as standalone games on a bye weekend. That happened for a number of seasons after 2003.

McGuire insisted: "Hopefully, in the bye round, there will be one game of football played on that particular weekend for the entire country. That game will be Sydney versus Collingwood at Stadium Australia.

"We think that is going to be similar in drawing people ... to a Bledisloe Cup-type event."

Colless joked that in troubled economic times, the Swans were under a ``Collingwood-led recovery." The reality was close to the truth than any sort of mirth he had intended. That 72,393 crowd helped pocket half a million dollars for the home side.

Earlier in the year, Sydney, under coach Paul Roos, had beaten Collingwood by 20 points, thanks to an outstanding game from Adam Goodes. The Magpies just couldn't do enough to claw their way back, despite five goals kicked by Chris Tarrant.

But Mick Malthouse's side had won seven of the previous eight heading into the Round 21 clash, and were looking to carry their outstanding record of winning on the road on for another clash.

Despite the fact that Sydney super horse Lonhro was making his racetrack return that afternoon in the Group 2 Warwick Stakes, league officials were privately anticipating a crowd of more than 60,000 for the Swans-Magpies clash.

There were even some hopes that the Anzac Day figure of 62,589 for the Collingwood and Essendon could be bettered.

It would be all that and much, much more.

Malthouse didn't care about the crowd though. His eyes were solely fixed on a double chance for the Magpies, which promised to be the club's reward if they could overcome the impressive Swans.

"It's no use trying to avoid it, it's staring us right in the face,'' he said, saying a win over the Swans would lock in top four.

"Seven clubs inside the eight are playing finals football for the next two weeks before they enter the true finals series.''

"When the side has won seven of its last eight . . . it's difficult to change the side."

The Magpies named an unchanged team to the one that had beaten Adelaide by 37 points a week earlier, but there would be a couple of late exclusions. Richard Cole would be withdrawn with the flu and Steven McKee was pushed out for team balance reasons as the rain that had started at 3pm kept coming throughout the afternoon and into the game time of 7.20pm.

McKee's omission put extra pressure back on Josh Fraser, who was the club's standalone ruckman in the game, but he seemed to thrive on the opportunity and was one of his team's best players.

Sydney, the football club, and Sydney, the city, relished the hype of hosting such a big crowd at the venue that only three years earlier had hosted the 2000 Olympics - to even bigger crowds.

There was a moving pre-game tribute to Ron Barassi, who was retiring from the Swans board at the end of that season, having coached the Swans in the early to mid-1990s.

Barassi was delighted that the "sleeping giant had awoken" in terms of the city's capacity to welcome Australian football. He even said that he wanted to see three or four teams playing out of Sydney, "even if it took another 50 years of hard work."

A decade on, the city has two AFL clubs, with the Greater Western Sydney Giants in their second season and with a bloke by the name of Kevin Sheedy still their coach - at least for the next four games.

Having surprised the rest of the competition a year earlier by making a Grand Final and almost grabbing a premiership off Brisbane, Collingwood started slowly in 2003, but hit back strongly in the second half of the season.

And the way they started that Round 21 clash with Sydney suggested they meant business.

Collingwood kicked five goals to two in the opening term to set the scene, including the first four of the game. These four goals came from Paul Licuria (who was outstanding on the night and would ultimately receive the three Brownlow votes), Tristen Walker (in his seventh game), Heath Scotland (in his last year with the Pies) and Scott Burns.

Sydney's first goal didn't come until the 21st minute of the match, via young gun Ryan O'Keefe before Adam Schneider nailed a banana goal from 45m. When Anthony Rocca kicked the Pies' fifth, it made the difference 20 points at quarter-time.

Scotland, having a strong match, kicked another goal in the second term and then 20-year-old Alan Didak pushed the margin out to 32 after securing his first major.

By the long interval, the difference was a comfortable 27 points, and when Rocca kicked a superb goal 13 minutes into the third quarter, it looked as if the Magpies were in control.

But in the great tradition of Sydney, it was still far from a spent force. The Swans kept coming, with the crowd so evenly divided between the all-powerful Magpie supporters and the home-grown Swans fans split right down the middle.

By time-on in the third term, the home side commenced a turnaround by kicking three goals in time-on (one from Barry Hall and two from former Magpie Paul Williams) to cut the difference to 21 points at the last change.

Williams was being tagged by Brodie Holland, and put under pressure any time he went for the ball. In the week after the game, one Swans players, who refused to be named, dared to suggest that Holland could become "the next Libba", meaning Western Bulldogs tagger Tony Liberatore.

Sydney then kicked three of the first four goals of the final term, bringing the difference to an uncomfortable 11 points with plenty of time remaining on the clock. Not for the first time between these two famous clubs, the crowd was deeply engrossed in a close, tense contest that seemed capable of going either way.

The difference came in the experience of players such as Nathan Buckley (in his 224th game overall and 204th in black and white) and Burns (158th), who knew just how to slow the game down and take the sting out of the Swans' great run.

As the Herald Sun recorded: "Collingwood then cleverly slowed down the match ... and it was senior players Scott Burns and Nathan Buckley who kept matters calm with some telling touches."

It was precisely what was required. And the Magpies managed to secure another goal, set up by Burns but kicked by Scotland, and held on to win by 18 points.

Fraser was a key player, having 19 hit-outs, kicking a goal and having 12 of his 17 disposals as contested ones. Licuria was brilliant, as was Buckley, Scotland and Rocca each kicked three goals and Didak was clever and composed with the ball.

Shane Wakelin kept Barry Hall to four kicks and only one goal in an important match-up.

Malthouse was delighted with the performance, saying the Swans had always been a formidable foe.

"They have a very well disciplined tuned football side that plays a brand of football that is extremely good and they have the players to go with it," he said. "So to come up here and win makes it a very good effort.

"Especially given they out-possessed us in kicks and handpasses, and marks, and in one of the most important areas in free kicks, they were substantially better than us at winning free kicks."

That was a typically pointed reference to the free kick line of 25-15, which favoured the home side.

Still, that didn't matter in the end, the Magpies had prevailed and a great tradition at the stadium was born between these two immensely competitive, immensely proud football clubs.

The next chapter will come on Saturday night and, as usual, there will be many twists and turns.