Sydney superstar Lance Franklin will resume running next week but remains an unlikely starter in round one of the AFL season.
Franklin underwent knee surgery in January, halting a promising block of training that represented one of his best starts to a pre-season since leaving Hawthorn in 2013 to join the Swans.
The 33-year-old rushed back for the start of the 2019 season following groin surgery then managed to play a total of only 10 games because of recurring hamstring injuries.
The Swans are keen to ensure their gun forward, who has three seasons left on his nine-year deal, does not have another stop-start campaign.
“He’ll start running next week and build up” Swans coach John Longmire told SEN.
“We want to give him a good training block, though. We just can’t throw him into the season just for the sake of round one.
“We’re not sure what it (his recovery) looks like just yet, but we’ll monitor how it goes from next week on.”
Sydney start their season against Adelaide on March 21, when key forwards Sam Reid and Tom McCartin will both have big roles to play if Franklin isn’t available.
Longmire floated the idea of Callum Sinclair spending more time in the forward line, also pointing to Isaac Heeney, Tom Papley, Will Hayward, Ben Ronke, Sam Gray and Lewis Taylor’s potency.
“We think we’ve got a pretty diverse forward line and we’ve been seeing that over the last three or four weeks with our smalls in particular,” Longmire said.
“We’re looking forward to seeing how they evolve.”
Young gun Nick Blakey is another option in attack, although he is set to spend even more time in the midfield this year.
Heeney, who underwent surgery a fortnight ago to repair a broken thumb, is fully expected to be ready for round one.
The Swans could have managed Franklin’s sore knee throughout 2020 but wanted to give the four-time Coleman medallist the best chance of playing as many games as possible.
“He had the (same) procedure on the other knee a couple of years ago and that pulled up really well. So we’re confident he knows what that’s about,” Longmire said.