Nick Smith and Lewis Roberts-Thomson will return to the Swans line-up for Sunday’s match against Hawthorn at Launceston’s Aurora Stadium.
Swans co-captain Adam Goodes will also make his return following a one-week suspension, and will play his milestone 304th match for the club in Tasmania.
Swans coach John Longmire said he was pleased to see the experienced campaigners return for the team’s all-important clash with the Hawks.
“(Hawthorn) are almost at full strength and they’ve got some really talented players in their team and we need to be mindful of that, and it’s good to have a couple of experienced players coming back in,” he told SwansTV.
Longmire said both Smith and Roberts-Thomson trained solidly this week, and both players are fit and ready to return to the side following two weeks on the sidelines.
“Nick trained last Friday and has trained all week this week, so he’s feeling really good,” he said.
“He comes into the team this week and he’s a really important player for us in defence.
“LRT ran last week and felt really good, and has trained all week and the doc says he should be right, so he is confident and ready to go.”
Gary Rohan (broken leg), Tony Armstrong and Jesse White are the players from last week’s winning Swans’ side not to be named in the senior team to face Hawthorn.
Longmire said despite missing out on selection this week, both Armstrong and White have shown plenty of promise over the last four weeks.
“We thought that Tony Armstrong, who came into the play after being a sub quite early in the game, did a good job for us.
“He’s a player we think will play a fair bit of senior footy for us this year, so he’s a bit unlucky, but he’ll go into our reserves and keep his form up.
“Jesse White is the other one who has contributed really well over the last couple of weeks, and we had a lot of discussion at match committee over what we were going to do.
“His last couple of weeks have been really solid for us so hopefully he keeps that improvement going because if that improvement continues we know Jesse will be an important player for us.”
This Sunday’s match will be the first time the Swans have played a home and away match at Aurora Stadium, and Longmire said the team is looking forward to the Tassie challenge.
“We’ve been fortunate to have been at home a bit, but to get down to Tassie will be good and we’ve got some fantastic supporters down there,” he said.
“Hopefully we put on a really strong performance.
“It’s Hawthorn’s home ground technically, and we know and understand that they’ve got a really good record down there, but we’re going down there with a level of confidence to be really competitive against one of the better teams in the competition.”
The Swans team to face Hawthorn can be found below.
Hawthorn v Sydney Swans
Sunday April 29, 2012
1.10pm AEST,
Aurora Stadium, Launceston, Tasmania
B M.Mattner, H.Grundy, A.Johnson
HB J.McVeigh, T.Richards, R.Shaw
C K.Jack, J.Bolton, L.Jetta
HF N.Malceski, A.Goodes, A.Everitt
F C.Bird, S.Reid, B.McGlynn
Foll M.Seaby, J.Kennedy, R.O'Keefe
I/C D.Hannebery, L.Parker, L.Roberts-Thomson, N.Smith
Emg T.Armstrong, T.Walsh, J.White
In: L.Roberts-Thomson, N.Smith, A.Goodes
Out: G.Rohan (Broken Leg), J.White, T.Armstrong
