Swans coach John Longmire confirmed that the 24-year-old, who had a limited pre-season after undergoing a knee arthroscope late last year, will take the field for the first time since the 2012 Grand Final in Saturday’s match.
“Nick Smith will definitely come over to Adelaide and play seniors for us,” Longmire said before this afternoon’s training session.
“It won’t be the whole game, but he’ll get the opportunity to play seniors for us.”
Fellow defender Marty Mattner is also likely to return to football this weekend, but the coach said he was yet to determine whether Mattner would travel to Adelaide or take part in the Swans reserves clash with the Hills Eagles on Saturday morning.
“I’m discussing with Marty at the moment whether he can play this week or not,” Longmire said.
“He’s certainly going to play somewhere; we’re just working out whether he plays seniors or reserves at the moment.
“He’s OK to play and he’s keen to play; we’ll just work out in the next 24 hours whether he plays seniors or reserves.”
Longmire also confirmed that Swans rookie Dane Rampe would get another opportunity this weekend in Adelaide after showing consistent efforts throughout the NAB Cup.
“(Dane’s) played well for the first few weeks, and obviously with our defence there are spots there that can be utilised by players who can take the opportunity with both hands,” he said.
“From a pure needs basis, Dane has been able to drop down back for us and he will get another opportunity this week.”
This weekend will also see the return of premiership forward Mitch Morton, who is yet to play a game this pre-season.
Morton, who worked his way into the senior team late last season, has had an injury interrupted pre-season, and will most likely line up in the reserves this weekend.
“He’s had a couple of little niggles. He has had a sore ankle and then a back so he’s been in and out of the training program,” Longmire said.
“In the last week or two he’s been training pretty solidly, so he’s one we’ve got a question mark on whether he plays (in the seniors) this week.
“(It’s not) because we think he’s not good enough – we think he is good enough to play in our senior team obviously – but whether he, combined with Mattner and Smith and a few of the others in Mumford and Goodes, whether you can have the combination of them all in one team.
“What we’re conscious of is not playing too many players who haven’t had the right amount of preparation and we’re certainly thinking about that.”
In other Swans news, Longmire said young midfielder Tom Mitchell has been making progress since returning to team training in the last week.
The coach said the 19-year-old, who has been hit with a series of injury setbacks, is on track to take the field for the reserves in the coming weeks.
“He’s just training really well at the moment and has been training for a couple of weeks and has been doing really good job,” Longmire said.
“We expect that if that continues for the next few weeks that we can see him running around in the reserves in a few weeks’ time.
“We’ve just been pleased to see him training and pleased to see him training really well.”
