After more than 100 AFL games, you wouldn’t imagine Lewis Roberts-Thomson would get too nervous before a pre-season cup game.

But it was a new experience for Roberts-Thomson last weekend against Carlton at Blacktown when he sat on the bench for the first half of the game, as a super-sub, along with Byron Sumner.

“I was really nervous because I sat out the first half and was due to come on in the second half, so it was different just sitting there and taking the game in with the atmosphere, the great crowd we had at Blacktown, and the speed of the game,’’ he said.

“You feel like a spectator for half the game and a player for half.’’

He liked what he saw from the bench, and from the field, and was as excited as any fan about the form and pace of new players Lewis Jetta and Gary Rohan. “Those guys lit up the oval,’’ he said.

But he is also feeling positive about the set up in the backline. He came on at half-time to replace Craig Bolton, and then played alongside Tadhg Kennelly, Martin Mattner, Ted Richards and Heath Grundy.

“We’ve got a lot of players lining up to play in defence but the best thing is that there is a lot of versatility among the players down there, we can do a lot of rotations on players and some of the guys can actually push up into the midfield or the forward line,’’ he said.

“So we have our foundations in strong defence but there are a lot of attacking options.’’

Roberts-Thomson was out of action briefly during the pre-season as he battled a quadriceps injury. He was restricted to running laps for three weeks, so his fitness is good, but he still needs to work on match fitness.

He’ll get the chance again tomorrow night when the Swans play St Kilda at Etihad Stadium in the second round of the pre-season cup.

“It will really give us a gauge of where we’re at. They are a great team to judge ourselves on because they were the best defensive team in the competition and so close to winning the grand final, so if we can hopefully match it with them, we are definitely on the improve from last year and there are a lot of exciting things to come.’’