In just his fourth year at the Sydney Swans, midfielder Dan Hannebery produced some of his career-best football this season.

Hannebery notched up a career-high 42 possession against West Coast in round 16, before finishing the year as one of the Swans’ stand-out performers in the team’s finals series.

The 21-year-old was at his very best in this year’s Grand Final, collection 29 disposals, landing five tackles and kicking a much-needed goal late in the game. Hannebery’s courage was also on show when the midfielder hauled in a gutsy mark which will go down as one of the defining moments of the 2012 premiership.

Hannebery spoke to sydneyswans.com.au about playing in his first AFL premiership.

How did you sum up your 2012 season?

It was obviously a slow start for me individually, but it was great to get going after a few weeks and there is nothing better than winning a premiership.

Compared to the success of 2011, what do you think the team improved on to go the next step this year?

Our defence stayed pretty strong and our attack and offence got a bit better with a few different players in there and we were able to consistently play good footy.

Who do you think were some of the most improved players?

I think Jetts was definitely the most improved, as well as Pyke coming in and obviously Alex Johnson back in defence has been good for us, even if he is a bit annoying at times! A few guys have improved for us this year which has definitely helped.

Looking at the Grand Final, there were probably three key plays you were involved in, talk us through that mark running back with big Hale and Sam Reid coming towards you.

Not a lot was going through my mind, I just saw the ball and knew it was going into their forward line and the defenders wouldn’t have expected me to go back and try to help out, so that’s all I did and luckily it stuck.

In the last quarter Hawthorn were up by two goals and Jetta won the ball and it ended up with you and you ran in and kicked the goal; how important was that goal?

I suppose it gave us a chance. We hadn’t really scored for a few minutes and it was a really good play by Jetts to get the ball free and it was great to convert and it gave us another chance. From there we were able to kick another couple (of goals) which was sensational.

At the stoppage right at the end, you fed the handpass out to Nick Malceski to kick the winning goals; what was that moment like?

It was awesome. All I remember was Mal yelling out ‘roll, roll, roll’ and I gave it to him and then next minute the ball was about to be bounced and me and Mal were still in the middle of the ground crying like little girls and then ‘nek minnit’ we had won the premiership.

What do the Swans need to do to stay ahead next year?

I think we’ve still got a fair bit of improvement. A fair few of our players have definitely got some room for improvement. If we can keep our defence really solid, I know that’s a fundamental of our game, then we can get better with our ball movement and ball use, so there are some really positive signs there.

What are your plans for the off season?

I’m going to go to the States with Kieren Jack and Josh Kennedy, so we’ll have two-and-a-half weeks over there and I’ll probably be in Melbourne after that for the rest of the break and probably a few days at the Spring Carnival.