The Sydney Swans are searching for five consecutive victories for the first time this season when they face Essendon at the Gabba on Saturday, July 31 in Round 20.

Swans duo Callum Mills and Harry Cunningham return for the upcoming fixture with James Rowbottom and Ben Ronke omitted from the side.

The pair were forced to quarantine a fortnight ago, moments before the Swans Round 18 clash against the GWS Giants after they, along with Colin O'Riordan and Callum Sinclair were re-classified as Tier-2 contacts due to attending a rugby match in Victoria.

They, along with Swans staff, returned to the team this week.

Essendon have named three changes to their side that had a 13-point defeat to GWS last week.

The Bombers will welcome back Kyle Langford from injury, with Aaron Francis making a return from mental health leave and Dylan Clarke set to play his first AFL game of the season after a lengthy injury layoff.

Veterans David Zaharakis and Cale Hooker and youngster Brayden Ham have been omitted.

The clash will kick off at 7:40pm 

WHERE TO WATCH

The match was originally scheduled to be played at Marvel Stadium however the Round 20 fixture was updated earlier this week. 

The match will be broadcast live by the Seven Network into New South Wales and the ACT and nationally on Foxtel and Kayo. 

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STATS

Recent encounters between these two teams have been extremely close, with an average margin of just 6-points over the last four encounters. Sydney won by 3-points when they met earlier this season, a Round 4 clash at the SCG and have won 2 of the last five encounters. 

Sydney enter this clash in strong form, with four consecutive wins. The team currently sits sixth on the ladder with 12 wins this season and come off a dominant 40-point victory over Fremantle last week.

Essendon enter this clash with two wins in the last five games and will be looking for victory as they sit ninth on the ladder with eight wins this season.

KEY QUOTES

John Longmire

"It's good to have Mills and Cunningham back in our team. They are in our leadership group, important drivers and play important roles so after a missing a couple of games, it's good to have them back in team line up," Longmire said.

"They were able to continue training as much as they could do in isolation. They had some fitness and gym equipment so they were able to keep going and do what they needed to do. They really only missed the one week of training with the team so it wasn't a big thing in that regard.

"It's just good to have them back. When they walked into the team room, they and the staff that have been in isolation, it's great for the energy of the group to have everyone back together and back amongst the team environment."

"We always look at what the opposition strengths are and we understand what they do really well. They are a pretty well balanced team, have a good midfield and we try and make sure understandably respect that but play to our strengths like we normally do most weeks."

"We will be looking to play with a four-quarter effort and we have some areas in our game we would like to keep improving. We need to improve on some areas and we need to do that this week.”

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