DEEP down, Paul Roos knew what sort of reaction he would get when he dialled Paul Kelly's number. His former teammate did not disappoint.

“Yeah, no worries, mate. Do what you like,” came the drawl from the other end of the line down on the farm in Wagga Wagga.

Kelly had just been told that after five years in moth balls, the club had decided to bring his famous No.14 jumper back out and present it to rookie Craig Bird.

The No.14 is significant at the Swans, having adorned the back of two of the club's legends – Kelly and Bob Skilton. Skilton spent 237 games in the jumper, 165 of those as captain, winning nine best and fairests and three Brownlow medals. Kelly played 234 games in No.14, was captain in a club record 182 of those games, won four best and fairests and the 1995 Brownlow medal.

It hasn't been seen since Kelly retired at the end of 2002, with some thinking it may have been retired permanently.

“I spoke to both Kell and Bobby Skilton and they are both excited about seeing the jumper running around again,” Roos said.

“If you're a guy who played in it and you don't see it running around it almost leaves a bit of a void. Bobby was just extremely happy to think: 'Gee, it's great I'm going to have a young kid to follow who's going to be wearing my jumper'.

“Kell was down in Wagga: 'What do you want, Roosy? Yeah, no worries, mate, do what you like'. He wanted to know a bit about Birdy as a player and I told him … they are both rapt and happy for the club to make the decision, but out of respect for them I wanted to call and make sure they were both comfortable with it.”

Roos said he felt it was significant that Bird – from Nelson Bay – take the jumper, as he was the club's first recipient of the AFL's NSW Scholarship (a program focused on developing NSW talent) and, like Kelly, is also a NSW youngster.

He said the club believed that Bird's “pedigree” is very good.

“It's a pretty big honour to be given the No.14, and I'm really excited to be given the opportunity, but I was pretty stunned, to be honest,” Bird said of being told the number could be his.

“I didn't think I'd be given the chance to wear it. It took me a few days to decide whether I wanted to take it or not. I knew there was a lot of history behind it but I got my head around it and decided to take it.

“I spoke to a lot of the coaches to see what they thought about it, and I spoke to my dad and a few of the other players and they thought it was a good idea and about time the jersey got brought back out.”

Roos said that there would naturally be some pressure with the jumper, but the longer you wait, the more that pressure builds. He added that he needed to check to see if there was a reason why he couldn't bring the No.14 back onto Sydney's list.

“I went to Andrew [Ireland, general manager of football] and said, 'Are we allowed to use that jumper?' and Andrew said, 'I think so', so then I went to the board and the board said I don't know why you couldn't use it,” Roos explained. “It's probably one of those things where certainly for the first 12 months-two years, it was a conscious thing [not to use it], then I think everyone got a bit scared about bringing it back out and no one spoke about it.

“But everyone, the board, Andrew, all said let's get it back out there.

“Obviously it's a bit daunting if you're aware of the history of the jumper, but once he's out on the field and once he's running around and people see it [the jumper], then it becomes a number and it's his number and he's got to make his own name.”