Simon White’s 22nd birthday’s come a little earlier this year; the former West Australian backman getting the call-up for his first senior game for Carlton, against Adelaide at AAMI Stadium on Saturday.

White, who hails from Subiaco where the likes of Carlton premiership captains Mike Fitzpatrick and Brighton Diggins cut their teeth, got the tap on his shoulder from Senior Coach Brett Ratten on Wednesday.

“I’m rapt. I’m very excited,” White told carltonfc.com.au.

“I had an inkling I was close. With Paul Bower out I thought that there might have been a spot for a defender,  I’d played reasonable footy in the VFL  and I’d been told by the coaches that if I’d kept going the way I was going I wouldn’t be too far away.”

Taken by Carlton as its fourth round selection (No.56 overall) in the 2010 Rookie Draft, White will proudly wear the No.43 guernsey made famous by David McKay and Anthony Koutoufides (whose biography he’s currently reading) into the match with Adelaide.

A Rising Star Award winner for Subiaco in what was his maiden season at senior level in the WAFL last year, White had on more than one occasion in Perth been told he was either too small or too skinny to cut the mustard at AFL level - which only served as a driving force in his steady elevation to senior football at the elite level.

“I played about a year and a half of reserve grade footy  before I got my chance at Subiaco, and I suffered a few injuries in my first senior year there, so I had to deal with that,” White said. “Playing AFL was always a dream for me, but at that stage AFL seemed a bit out of reach, and there was a time where I thought it had actually passed me by.

“At 18 I probably wasn’t ready to enter an AFL environment. I was a bit immature and still very skinny, but now I think I’ve got the body that can match it with men.”

White’s mentor at Subiaco was the former West Coast, Sydney and Fremantle footballer Scott Watters, now the defensive line coach at Collingwood. “Scott was my coach at Colts before he became senior coach, so he was pretty much my coach for my whole time at Subiaco,” White said. “He was the one who slotted me into the back half and he helped me a lot with my early development as a footballer. ”

Having battled with a hip complaint through the pre-season period, White initially thought a senior tilt was further away. But having overcome the physical problem White is now up and about, and in one of football’s great understatements says he “can’t wait to get out there Saturday”.