He’s donned two different shades of blue, but this weekend Jeremy Laidler will pull on the red and white when he makes his Sydney Swans debut against GWS on Saturday at Spotless Stadium.

The former Blue, who began his AFL career at Geelong, will play his 27^th career game this Saturday after being selected in the side for the club’s round one clash.

Speaking to SwansTV ahead of his first match for the Swans, Laidler said he hoped this weekend’s debut would be his last.

“I’m absolutely rapt,” Laidler said.

“We went out to Spotless Stadium for training and Horse just came up to me and said ‘You’re in’, which was a massive weight off my shoulders.

“It’s my third club to debut but I’m hoping this will be my last and I’m hoping that I’m going to be here for a while.

“I can’t wait to get out there for the boys and I can’t wait to put on the red and white jumper.”

Laidler played extended game time in all three of the club’s pre-season matches, including the Swans’ second NAB Challenge clash against West Coast where he collected 21 disposals off the half back line.

Despite attracting plenty of the ball in that match, Laidler said he would be applying a ‘defence-first’ mindset in this weekend’s match and hoped to follow the lead of lock-down defender Nick Smith.

“The messages I’ve been getting from the coaches have just been to put your best foot forward and to try to beat your opponent first and that is doesn’t matter how much ball you get,” he said.

“It’s just like Nick Smith. He doesn’t go out to find the ball but he’s always beating his opponent and is one of the first ones to be picked.

“I tried to look at that mould and I suppose the ball came to me a little bit in the second NAB Challenge game and in the third game I just tried to beat my direct opponent which is what I’ll be aiming to do this week.”

Swans coach John Longmire said he had been extremely impressed with Laidler’s work over the pre-season, particularly his efforts to mould into the club’s back six.

“He comes into our defence and he’s very smart and very brave,” Longmire said.

“He started off just getting to know what was going on around him and getting used to that back six.

“He slowly built his form over the pre-season and he’s continued that form and over the last couple of games he’s been very strong.”

With a number of personnel changes over the off-season, the coach said he expected the 24-year-old to come in and fill a specific role for the Swans this week.

“Obviously losing Andrejs Everitt last year, we got Jeremy for that specific role to come in and give us some assistance in the back half,” he said.

“He can play on different types of players, which is great.”

With just two days to go until the season opener, Laidler said he would be working hard to get his family up to Sydney to see his first match in Swans’ colours.

“I’m going to try and get my old man up and he was looking at flights as soon as I told him,” he said.

“Other than that, my girlfriend will come along to the game too so it will be good.”