Sydney coach John Longmire is dealing with the worst injury crisis of his tenure, with Isaac Heeney ruled out for the rest of the AFL season and co-captain Josh Kennedy to miss six to eight weeks.
Heeney was undergoing ankle surgery on Monday afternoon after rupturing a medial ligament and tendon tunnel and will be in a moon boot for eight weeks.
Kennedy has sprained a medial ligament and will be in a knee brace for three to five weeks.
"He (Kennedy) has been fantastic. He and Isaac have been really good for us this year,' 'Longmire said.
"Isaac works so hard on his game; he plays a lot of the time with all sorts of injuries no one would know and he is as hard as.
"When he went down with an injury after the game I knew it was significant because he is tough."
In his tenth season as Swans coach, Longmire couldn't recall a worse injury situation during his tenure, especially in relation to his talls.
"We had a significant run last year at the back end of the year, but this is probably taking it to a new level,'" Longmire said.
"You can handle injuries across your list, (except) when they come from one particular area like height - your defenders, forwards."
He said Lance Franklin was still quite a few weeks off playing and fellow key forward Sam Reid probably hadn't trained enough to be considered for Saturday's SCG clash with Gold Coast.
Longmire said ruckman Callum Sinclair and youngster Tom McCartin were possibly the players with the best chance of returning from injury this weekend.
The Swans are languishing in 17th spot with two wins from six games and have lost their last three.
After blooding two players last week, Longmire foreshadowed having one or two more debutants in the team to play the Suns.
He joked he may have to give retired defender Nick Smith a ring to see if he can line up on the Suns' exciting young forward Izak Rankine.
Australian Associated Press
