MELBOURNE coach Simon Goodwin has announced three debutants for the AFL's season-opening fixture in Sydney.
Goodwin named the trio at the first of this year's weekly media conferences, as well as providing some insight into the club's current injury timelines.
Four-time club Best and Fairest winner Clayton Oliver was also confirmed as a certain starter to face the Swans.
Trio to Debut
"Caleb makes his debut. Blake Howes will play first game for the footy club and and so will Jack Billings," Goodwin said.
"We've got three guys that are really exciting players for our footy club and guys that I think our supporters will love to come and come and watch.
"So that's an exciting element for our footy club this weekend."
Recovery Updates
"Petty is probably still a few weeks away, he's tracking really well," Goodwin says.
"We want to try to set him up for the whole season. He's probably still two weeks away.
"Lachie Hunter is three to four weeks away. Shane McAdam is still two weeks away as well."
Oliver to Play
"He'll play, which is exciting for our footy club," Goodwin said.
"We've addressed some things and we've gone about a process for getting him to this point. It’s not finished but he's healthy, he's happy, he's ready.
"He's worked incredibly hard with a lot of people, with a lot of support from people within our footy club, some external people, and got himself into really healthy, happy place and fit.
"He's just been going about his business, about building trust and respect back with the football club, with his teammates and gone about that in a really positive way.
"He's physically in a great position. He's done, six weeks, seven weeks, of full training within our environment. And he's had the two VFL games as well. So he couldn't have done any more to be physically ready for the season ahead."
