White replaces Sam Reid, who is set to be sidelined for six more weeks with a quad tear suffered in last week’s win over Melbourne.
White returns to the side following strong form in the Swans reserves’ 60-point win over Eastlake last weekend, with Sunday’s match to be his fifth senior appearance for the season.
Swans coach John Longmire said he hoped White’s recent good performance with the Swans reserves could translate into the seniors this week.
“Hopefully Jesse is able to perform on a consistent basis and improve on the week-to-week basis that we know he can do,” Longmire told SwansTV.
“We know his best football is of a pretty good standard and his consistency at training has been pretty good.
“Now he needs to take that consistency into the games because his performance in the reserves was quite strong.”
With a number of senior Swans still unavailable for selection due to injury, Longmire said he hoped his young Swans side could produce another strong performance this weekend against GWS.
“We’ve been really pleased with our younger kids who have come into the team, whether it’s Dane Rampe or Jed Lamb or Brandon Jack last week; we’ve been really happy with the young kids we’ve been bringing into the group,” Longmire said.
“They’ve been a positive for the team in terms of the enthusiasm they’ve brought to the team, but what has made it easier is that our senior players have been playing on a consistent basis and delivering really well on a week-to-week basis.
“From that point of view it’s been really pleasing to get some young kids into the team and hopefully that increases the depth of our whole squad.”
Looking ahead to this Sunday’s Sydney Derby, Longmire said he was expecting a much-improved GWS side following a number of quality performances from them in recent weeks.
“They were probably a bit unlucky last week against the Western Bulldogs,” he said.
“They were in front for a fair bit of the game and played a really good brand of footy and we saw them play a few weeks ago against Geelong and they played really well and were in the game up to their eyeballs at three-quarter time.
“We know what their best can do and their best is pretty good.
“They’ve got some talent all over the ground, we know that, but we need to make sure we play to our strengths to stop them playing the sort of footy that they want to play.”
Longmire said his team was excited to be hosting GWS at the SCG for the first time this Sunday.
“We look forward to playing on the SCG at any time, but this is the first time we’ve played GWS here, so that’s a milestone in itself,” he said.
“First and foremost it’s about us playing really good, strong footy to try and win the game, and that’s what we’ll try and do.
“Playing in front of our home crowd is really important to us.”
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Sydney Swans v. GWS
SCG
Sunday, July 14, 2013
1.10pm
B N.Smith, T.Richards, D.Rampe
HB N.Malceski, H.Grundy, J.McVeigh
C D.Hannebery, J.Kennedy, B.McGlynn
HF A.Everitt, K.Tippett, L.Parker
F R.O'Keefe, M.Pyke, J.Bolton
Foll S.Mumford, K.Jack, C.Bird
I/C B.Jack, J.Lamb, T.Mitchell, J.White
Emg H.Cunningham, T.Membrey, X.Richards
In: J.White
Out: S.Reid (quad)
Milestone: C.Bird - 100 games
