Kurt Tippett will make his debut for the Sydney Swans this Saturday when the club takes on Port Adelaide at AAMI Stadium.
The forward, who spent the first 11 weeks on the sidelines serving an AFL imposed ban, said he couldn’t wait to don the red and the white for the first time this weekend.
“It’s been a little bit of a challenging period but it’s fantastic and I’m really excited to play my first game for the Sydney Swans,” Tippett told media at the SCG this afternoon.
“I’m really excited to go back to (Adelaide) and play.
“I’ve got the great news that I’ve been selected and I’m really excited about just getting out there and doing my bit for the side.”
Since the beginning of the 2013 season, Tippett has undertaken a personalised training program, which included repeat sprint sessions as well as match-simulation drills under the guidance of Head Conditioning Coach Rob Spurrs.
After almost three months of hard work on the track, the Swans’ number 8 said he felt his training program had adequately prepared him for his return to the field this weekend.
“I’ve been training for a fair while now and it’s been a consistent build up and I think it’s been something that has gone really well and I’m happy with my preparations and the next step is to play,” he said.
“I had a training program written out for me and it was building up to this day, so it’s all gone to plan.
“I got to practice with the team all summer and then we train every week, so I’m pretty familiar with how it’s going to be and the next step is to get out there and be in the red and white on game day.”
After performing well in an intra-club practice match over the bye weekend, Swans coach John Longmire said the decision to include the 202cm forward in the side this week was an easy one.
“We confirmed with Kurt this morning that he was going to play this week, his first game for the Sydney Swans, which we’re really pleased about,” Longmire said.
“We always said over the last week or two that he was a really strong chance and we just confirmed that this morning.
“We sat down this morning and looked at the team and thought that he could add something to us and help us be competitive this week in what will be a real challenge against Port Adelaide.”
After a number of weeks out of the game, the coach confirmed that Tippett’s game time would be monitored in this Saturday’s round 13 clash with the Power.
“We expect Kurt to play a fair bit of the game but he won’t be playing all the game,” Longmire said.
“We’ve got to make sure we manage his workload through the course of the game and then hopefully he’s able to do that and get through unscathed.”
Longmire added that Tippett would spend the majority of his time in the forward line, but could be called on to pinch hit in the ruck if required this weekend.
“We think he will play the majority of the time up forward, but we know he can play in the ruck as well,” he said.
“He’s done some ruck work with Stephen Taubert our ruck coach, but we think that (Mike) Pyke has been rucking really well and we know that Kurt can play there if required, but we expect for the majority of the time he will play up forward.”
