SYDNEY won't see off-season recruit Daniel Menzel at senior level for more than a month after the forward suffered a slight setback in his return from groin surgery.
Menzel had increased his training intensity over the past few weeks and looked to be closing in on a return to the field, but tweaked his groin at training last week.
It's a blow for the Swans, who recruited the former Geelong finisher to give the team more potency inside 50 and to decrease its reliance on superstar forward Lance Franklin.
The ex-Cat should be back into training in two weeks, with a look at playing at some level a couple of weeks after that, but he's likely to require at least a couple of games in the NEAFL before being considered for senior selection.
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Swans coach John Longmire said it was obviously a disappointing result for Menzel and his impending partnership with Franklin, who got up to play against the Western Bulldogs last week despite a limited pre-season.
"We knew that when they had their operations last year that if we got them back in the first month of the season, that'd be a real bonus," he said.
"We thought 'Menz' was on track to be playing week five even though he had the operation late, so he was ahead of schedule before his tweak last week, and Lance is definitely ahead of where we thought he'd be.
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"We can't afford to have too many in that boat of coming in after doing limited amounts of training, so that’s something we'll discuss with Dan when he's closer to playing."
Franklin had little impact against the Bulldogs in his team's 17-point loss, with just one goal from seven possessions, but Longmire expects the West Australian to do some training on Wednesday after pulling up well from his first match of the year.
The 32-year-old played just over 90 minutes against the Dogs, more than the Swans had planned for, but Longmire doesn't expect Franklin's impact to increase in Friday night's crucial clash against Adelaide if his teammates don't improve their ball movement and intensity further up the ground.
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"We were well beaten in the midfield and between the arcs we were really poor, at both winning the ball and in transition," he said.
"We just didn't use the ball well and weren't able to win those scrambles for the ball.
"The main element was getting our hands on the footy and everything flows off that, your ball movement gets better and it doesn't give you opportunities going forward when you're getting beaten so badly in ground balls.
"It also puts more pressure on your defenders, which is what we saw."
Small forward Ben Ronke (knee) could be available to face the Crows after missing round one, while Kieren Jack (knee) and Tom McCartin (concussion) could also add to the inside-50 mix after getting through a NEAFL scratch match on the weekend.
