Coach Paul Roos and the Swans match committee made the tough call to drop Malceski in round eight after his early-season output had failed to live up to expectations.
The 24-year-old responded with 34 possessions and four goals to win an immediate recall to the senior side, just in time for the Swans’ best performance of the season against Port Adelaide.
“I didn’t really like it back in the reserves, so it was good to get back. I wasn’t out of form; I just wasn’t in the form that I wanted to be in,” Malceski said on Wednesday.
“Obviously having a good year in ’07 and then doing my knee and trying to get back into it, it wasn’t sort of clicking for me.
“I spoke to Roosy and I think going back to the twos was the best thing for me to try to get a bit of form back there and try to get back into the form that I [had] in ’07.”
Malceski said there were no problems with his knee that was reconstructed with a synthetic graft after he ruptured his ACL in the 2008 pre-season.
He said regaining confidence in the joint’s lateral movement was the only hurdle he had faced in making his comeback just three months after the surgery – and that was no longer a problem.
“I got over that pretty easily after my first reco and with my second one, I knew what I had to do to get over it and I thought I did,” Malceski said.
“It was just that the form I was in wasn’t where I wanted to be.
“The mindset going into the twos game was sort of a bit more relaxed and there’s not as much pressure on you.
“That’s the good thing about going back to the twos. I just went in and relaxed and I tried to take that into last week’s game as well.”
