Rohan will play his first senior game in almost 16 months after recovering from a horrific leg break suffered in round four last season, while Lamb will return after being the non-playing emergency for last weekend’s loss to Collingwood.
Young midfielders Tom Mitchell and Brandon Jack are the two who will make way for Rohan and Lamb this week.
Swans coach John Longmire said Rohan, who has played four matches for the Swans reserves since making his long-awaited return from injury in mid-July, had shown fantastic determination to make his way back to senior football.
“He’s done a magnificent job over a long time since he had the injury last year,” Longmire told SwansTV.
“He’s worked really hard and he’s been positive and he’s been training for a long time and he gets his opportunity this week, which is great to see.
“We’re really happy to see him back.
“He’s been playing in our reserves for over a month now and has been getting a really good run around and we get an opportunity to see him at senior level this week.”
Longmire said Lamb, who has played 10 games for the Swans this season since making his AFL debut in round 6, would be another handy inclusion for the team this week.
“Jed was our emergency last week and didn’t play,” Longmire said.
“Really, we’re looking for him to do what he was doing before he was out of the team, which was contributing pretty well.
“He played quite well against the Western Bulldogs and might have been a bit unlucky to go out of the team, but he did some really good stuff on the wing and up forward and he kicked a couple of goals.”
While Mitchell and Jack drop out of the side for Sunday’s match, Longmire said he expected both players would get another shot at senior football before the year is out.
“Those two have been fantastic for us and I’m sure they will contribute before the end of the year in a pretty big way,” he said.
“They’ve had a big workload to this point and I’m sure over the coming weeks they’ll be back in the side and really helping the team like they have over the last eight to ten weeks.”
Looking ahead to the round 21 match against the Saints, Longmire said he expected another close contest from St Kilda this weekend.
The last time the two sides met was in round five this season, where the Swans took out a 16-point win at Wellington’s Westpac Stadium.
Longmire said the Swans would need to be wary of St Kilda’s experienced players, including Nick Riewoldt and Stephen Milne.
“The match over in New Zealand this year, which was the first game outside of Australia for four points, was a pretty tough encounter and went right down to the wire,” he said.
“They’ve still got some of the best players going around in blokes like (Nick) Riewoldt, who has been a champion for a long time, and (Stephen) Milne’s come back into the team.
“We saw (Adam) Schneider come back into the team and contribute and kick goals (last week), so they’ve still got some good experienced players and they’ve brought in a lot of youth as well.
“Those young kids are certainly playing an exciting brand of footy, so we need to play well and we need to get back to the sort of footy that we want to play.
“We were a bit off last week, so we need to be better and produce a four-quarter performance this week against the Saints.”
Sydney Swans v. St Kilda
SCG
Sunday, August 18, 2013
3.20pm
B D.Rampe, H.Grundy, N.Smith
HB R.Shaw, T.Richards, A.Everitt
C J.McVeigh, R.O’Keefe, N. Malceski
HF D.Hannebery, J.White, L.Parker
F M. Pyke, K.Tippett, J.Bolton
Foll S.Mumford, J. Kennedy, K.Jack
I/C C. Bird, J. Lamb, B. McGlynn, G. Rohan
Emg H.Cunningham, B.Jack, T.Mitchell
In: G.Rohan, J.Lamb
Out: B.Jack. T.Mitchell
