SYDNEY expects star midfielder Callum Mills and his isolating teammates to be available to play as soon as they complete their mandatory period of isolation, though the quartet will miss this weekend's clash with Fremantle.
Mills, Harry Cunningham, Colin O'Riordan and Callum Sinclair will miss two games in total after they attended the Australia v France rugby match in Melbourne last week that was re-classified as a Tier 2 COVID-19 exposure site just an hour before Sunday's Sydney Derby.
The four players are now restricted to modified training programs in their hotel rooms, but coach John Longmire said they should be available for the Swans’ match against Essendon in round 20.
"They've got some exercise equipment to try to keep them physically sharp and mentally sharp as well, that's really important to be able to get in a routine,” Sydney coach John Longmire told reporters on Tuesday.
"They need to keep their strength programs going even though they're in their rooms.
"We're still confident that when they get out, they'll have enough preparation for that next game. But we won't put them at risk, we'll see how the week goes."
The Swans' four players and five other staff members that were at the rugby match have had the start of their 14-day quarantine period backdated to last week’s exposure date, so will be able to leave their rooms next Tuesday.
The five staff members now in isolation include the bulk of the Swans’ fitness and conditioning staff, who have put together training plans for the four players and the rest of the playing group while working from their hotel rooms.
"Our head fitness guy is one of those guys caught up in this and he's working with everyone involved in isolation to be able to keep them in a bit of a routine as much as they can," Longmire said.
"It's the week-to-week stuff as well. It's the supervision of gym programs, it's the monitoring of training loads and all of the things that you take for granted when you've got fitness staff and conditioning staff to look after your team. That's not available to us at the moment so we're doing our best.
"There are a lot of people doing a lot more jobs, crossing over and doing a hell of a lot of work to try to keep things going.”
The Swans are trying to arrange another scratch match for their reserves, including young forward Logan McDonald, to play later this week.
Sam Reid and Braeden Campbell played in a reserves hitout last weekend but could do with another run to build fitness and rediscover their touch after lengthy stints on the sidelines due to injury.
“Unfortunately we're not able to play our players with anyone else up here, so we're trying to work out what we do in that regard because we have a [VFL] bye this week,” Longmire said.
"We're still yet to confirm what we're doing with some of those guys at the lower level this week. We'd like to give those guys a game if we can this week.”