Sydney Swans senior coach Dean Cox has confirmed five changes for this Saturday’s Pride Game at the SCG, with young small forward Jesse Dattoli to make his AFL debut in Round 21.
Dattoli was recruited to the Sydney Swans with the club’s first selection in the 2024 Telstra AFL Draft but had his first pre-season interrupted due to injury.
After returning to play, he debuted in the VFL competition in Round 9 and has appeared in nine games this season, with an average of 12.6 disposals, 2.2 tackles while kicking 15 goals.
“I think the one thing with Jesse is when he first got to the club, he showed some real attributes on the training track,” Cox said.
“He’s played a lot of VFL footy and his forward craft and footy IQ is really high.
“He’s really clean and fundamentally sound and I’m really excited to see him have an opportunity.”
Meanwhile, teammates Caiden Cleary, Ollie Florent, Peter Ladhams join the team alongside defender Tom McCartin who is set to return to the action in his first game since Round 18.
“It’s great news for Tom,” Cox said.
“He’s done everything he possible could. He trained really well today, pulled up well after training so it’s just about a session tomorrow morning.
“If everything goes well, he lines up which is great.”
The Swans will be looking to bounce back following a disappointing loss to the GWS Giants last week.
“We’ve got to rectify that second half performance,” Cox said.
“I think one thing we need to do is to finish off the year as well as we possible can. I’ve said that to the players all week.
“We’ve prepared really well for Essendon. They’ve got some really experienced players, with the likes of Zach Merrett, Dylan Shiel and Peter Wright, and they have a lot of players that are in the team that are still quality footballers so we need to get some ascendancy certainly around the ball first.”
Errol Gulden will play his 100th game milestone.
