The Sydney Swans forward line could be bolstered ahead of Sunday’s match against the Western Bulldogs with young forward Sam Reid likely to push for selection after spending two weeks on the sidelines with a knee injury.

Swans coach John Longmire said the 20-year-old started running last week, and should return to full training later this week.

“The one to come back into the calculation this week would be Sam Reid,” Longmire said on Monday.

“He ran today and ran really well and will do a bit of training on Wednesday and will hopefully do full training on Friday.

“His knee is feeling pretty good so if he’s able to do a bit more Wednesday and then up the ante and do the whole session Friday then he’ll come straight into the team.”

Reid will be a welcome inclusion to the Swans forward line, who suffered a bout of inaccuracy in Saturday night’s eight-point loss to Collingwood at ANZ Stadium.

The Swans kicked 1.5 in the final quarter on Saturday night, allowing the Pies to end Sydney’s nine-game winning streak.

Longmire said Reid’s presence in the forward line would be a huge boost for his side in Sunday’s clash with the Bulldogs in Melbourne.

“(Reid) would be a really good in for us because he’s a really important player for us,” he said.

“Even when he’s not kicking bags of goals, he allows other players to do other things and he’s an important player for our structures.”

Reflecting on Saturday night’s loss to the Pies, Longmire said the Swans have been able to learn plenty from the match.

“As always there were things we did well and things we didn’t do well,” Longmire said.

“I mean kicking 1.5 in the last quarter didn’t help us, and in these really close, tight games, that makes a bit of a difference.

“But there are certainly things through the whole course of the game that we looked at and thought that we could have done a bit better.”

Longmire added that poor decision making cost the team in the dying moments of Saturday’s night’s game.

“We learned from a couple of things we did wrong in the last five minutes and we can hopefully improve on some of that,” he said.

“In the last five minutes we probably could have done things a little bit better.

“You drop your guard a little bit and good teams get it right most of the time and that’s what Collingwood are, and they got it right a bit better than what we did.

“We probably blazed the ball in a little too much at times … and we needed to show a bit more composure.”

The Swans face the Bulldogs this Sunday at Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium.
Longmire said despite the Dogs’ disappointing recent form, the team won’t be approaching the match with any less vigour.

“What we’re worried about is the Bulldogs this week and we need to win and we need to improve on some of the things we did poorly on the weekend,” he said.

“This week is no different to what it was last week going into the Collingwood game in regards to what we focus on.

“We need to make sure we play the sort of footy we want to play, whether it’s Collingwood last weekend or the Bulldogs this weekend.”