Returning Swan Tadhg Kennelly says Sydney need to worry about neutralising, rather than beating, Carlton champion Chris Judd in Friday's AFL clash at the SCG.

Irish defender Kennelly will make his first senior appearance of the season after recovering from off-season knee surgery and successfully getting through three reserves games.

Sydney must attempt to curtail dynamic midfielder Judd's influence, especially at the SCG, where Kennelly said clearances were an "enormous" factor.

"We don't have to beat him. I think if we can neutralise Chris Judd's impact in the clearances it's a win for us," Kennelly told reporters on Wednesday.

He doubted any single person could handle the job of trying to negate Judd, who has had some famous duels in the past with Sydney's own dual Brownlow medallist Adam Goodes.

"That will be a nice match for everyone to watch, Goodesy and Juddy, but Goodesy has been a lot more in the forward line for us and he has pinch hit in the midfield," Kennelly said.

"I think a few players will probably go through Chris, it's just part and parcel of midfielders these days.

"Because so many players are going to rotate through the midfield you can't really have one player afford to try and play on Chris Judd for the whole game."

Kennelly also said the controversial new substitute rule probably delayed his start to the season.

"You can rotate the players a lot more if you have four on the bench, it's caused a bit of havoc amongst teams and amongst clubs," Kennelly said.

He said Sydney were doing well putting pressure on their opposition, but needed to improve their ball use and attack.

Kennelly, 29, didn't expect to decide until late in the season whether he would continue in the AFL next year or head home once his contract expires at the end of the current campaign.

However, with Sydney making a promising start to the year and an exciting crop of young players emerging, Kennelly admitted the thought of being part of a future potential premiership-winning team could sway him into staying beyond this season.

"It would be a shame to miss out on that, so that's definitely a huge drive," Kennelly said.

"We've been able to get through a transition almost from the 05-06 team to a team now that is ready to be pushing forward in the next couple of years."

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