Saturday’s night’s NAB Cup opener against Carlton will be Tadhg Kennelly’s first game for the club since he quit the Swans in January last year to fulfil his dream of winning a Gaelic football All-Ireland trophy with his county, Kerry.
Bolton said his premiership teammate had slotted back into the side without missing a beat.
“It’s like he never really went overseas for a year, so we’re looking forward to having him back there in the backline this week,” he said.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine and play really well. He’s been really impressive at training, along with Nick Malceski. They’ve been standout performers so far on the training track so we’re looking forward to see big things from them in the pre-season.”
The Swans are set to field their strongest possible side against the Blues at Blacktown Olympic Park on Saturday night, but Bolton conceded the forward line would be missing a few key players.
Daniel Bradshaw will miss after undergoing recent minor knee surgery, Jesse White is in some doubt after recovering from an ankle complaint and the luckless Lewis Johnston (toe) is still in the rehab group.
Others set to miss include Rhyce Shaw (knee) who trained away from the main group on Tuesday and midfielder Brett Meredith (quad).
Bolton said their absence of key players would open the door for the club’s new faces including livewire forward Trent Dennis-Lane, who booted five goals in the Swans’ intra-club match last Friday.
“Trent obviously had a really good game last week in our intra-club so with him playing this weekend, along with Lewis Jetta, Byron Sumner, Gary Rohan… if a few of those guys can get some game time in the next few weeks, it’ll be really good for them and we should see some great things from them in the future,” he said.
While the Swans are set to field a makeshift forward line around new focal point Adam Goodes, the defence looks set to be at full strength against the Blues.
Bolton said Brendan Fevola’s off-season move to the Brisbane Lions made it hard for the defenders to form a plan to negate Carlton’s forward line.
“It’s a bit difficult to know what sort of side Carlton are going to have [but] at this time of year, you’re really concentrating on yourself and your own team," he said.
“They’ve got some great players up there and some really good tall players like [Matthew] Kreuzer and [Robbie] Warnock who can play forward. It will be interesting to see what sort of make-up their forward line is.
“No doubt it will be a really good chance for our defenders to test themselves out this week.”
