Swan Robinson working his way back to bestThursday, June 6, 2013 - 4:00 PM - by Chris Pike

SWAN Districts lost some key players coming into 2013 no less than its inspirational captain and spearhead in attack, but Brett Robinson is like a virtual new recruit and the goal kicking midfielder is now getting back to his best form after a horror run with injury.

Swans made last year's preliminary final but coming into 2013 lost captain Josh Roberts, gun full-forward Ashley Hansen and prolific midfielder Marlon Motlop but the return of 2010 premiership player Robinson from another knee reconstruction has helped make up for that.

The 27-year-old was just about the best player in the WAFL by 2009 after arriving from VFL club Werribee in 2008. As a damaging midfielder, there was none better than Robinson who averaged 25 possessions a game in 2009 and kicked 32 goals, but then things started to unravel in 2010.

Robinson injured his knee in Round 4, 2010 against East Fremantle and underwent LARS surgery and was able to make it back to be part of Swans' remarkable premiership but he couldn’t regain his dynamic form of before the injury.

He managed 15 league games in 2011, but battled a mystery illness for much of the year that limited his running capacity and then in the pre-season of 2012, went down with another knee injury that required a reconstruction.

That led to him missing all of the 2012 season, but he has returned strongly this year and played every game so far averaging over 22 disposals.

Last Saturday he put in perhaps his best performance in years with 24 touches and two goals against Perth where he kicked the winning goal on the run from just inside 50 in the dying stages of the contest.

"I was pretty fatigued once 'Swoop' (Tim Geappen) gave me the ball because I had come from centre half-back and felt a bit of pressure on me. That's why I had a shot and didn’t pass it to Dayle (Garlett)," Robinson said.

"I thought the old hammy was going to go there at one stage but luckily enough it went through. I was just ecstatic and then we all knew we had to push back, and clog it up in the back-line. The last couple of minutes were pretty hairy but we managed to hold them off."

Garlett was the other star of the day for Swans on Saturday kicking six goals and while he has played with supremely talented players like Nic Naitanui, Chris Yarran, Jeff Garlett, Stephen Coniglio and Andrew Krakouer in his 71-game Swan Districts career, Robinson puts Garlett right up there.

"He is right up there with the Yarran's and players like that skill-wise that we've had at Swans," he said.

"This year you can just see that he has knuckled down, he's a lot fitter and his personal life on the outside is good. He is doing his course at the AIF and all of that, and you can just tell by the way he's going about it on the footy field that it's all coming together for him, which is good to see."

Robinson always expected the first half of his 2013 season after 12 months out of the game to be one where he worked his way into it, but perhaps his form has even exceeded his own expectations after having times when he needed that second knee reconstruction he thought it might all be over.

However, he still expects big things from himself and that means he expects an even better second half of the season as he hopes to try and help Swans into another finals campaign.

"I expect big things from myself and I've been around the mid-20s possession-wise this season so far and I want to lift that over the second half of the year. I've used the first half as a building block because I have missed so many games from 2009 onwards but I'm enjoying being back and playing footy, and while I'm injury-free," he said.

"I've told myself to have a bigger second half to what my first half of the season has been so hopefully that can happen and I can play some really good footy for Swans. I had some doubts about getting back after doing two knees within a year and-a-half with a full reconstruction after the LARS that I had.

"They were pretty close together so I had huge doubts about if I could regain my speed and sideways movement. The club kept faith with me and that helped me, and having the football club behind has helped me get back and play some decent footy again."

Swan Districts suffered disappointing losses at home to East Perth and Subiaco leading into the clash with the third-placed Perth but now that the win improves the black-and-whites to a 4-5 record Robinson hopes they can now build on the momentum after this week's bye.

"The losses that we've had have been pretty close as well, though, and there was sort of that feeling that Perth were on top of us for a lot of the day, but the best thing to come out of the win was that we kept plugging away and forcing the ball forward. Our run in the last quarter was just unreal," Robinson said.

"We have the bye now so we can get our legs going again working on some fitness, and we just have to keep working on playing at that high intensity for four quarters. We are playing in patches and that's the most disappointing thing at the moment.

"We have a lot of talent in the side and we play some good footy, but we have played some terrible footy as well. We have to start putting it together for four quarters and we can mix it with any side hopefully."

Swan Districts can also look forward to the return of Tallan Ames, Travis Casserly and Luke Miles after the bye as well as possibly Murray Newman so there's improvement to come while everyone is certainly on notice to keep performing after Simpson Medallist Wayde Twomey was dropped.

"Tallan is so important to us in that back-line and he's a great full-back, and Cass and Milesy are very talented players so we have some players there to come back in which is only going to help as well. Hopefully it's only forward from here, but we are aiming for big four quarter efforts," Robinson said.

"He won the Simpson and then got dropped so that shows to all of us that nobody is safe in the team, which is what you want at a footy club that wants to be successful. You want positions to be under pressure and you want to have to play your best footy so you don’t get dropped. Everyone's on notice and that's a good thing to have."