Hannebery, who led the way for the Swans in last Sunday’s 34-point win over West Coast with 40 disposals and two goals, said taming the Tigers’ stars, including Trent Cotchin, Dustin Martin and Brett Deledio, would require another step up from the team this week.
“No doubt they’ve been a very good footy side this year and they are sitting well inside the eight,” Hannebery told SwansTV.
“They’ve been playing quality footy, and we all know what a quality pressure footy team Freo is, and they beat them on the weekend.
“They’ve got a talented list but they are also playing great football, so we respect the way they go about it, and it’s going to be a really tough challenge this week.
“It’s going to be a huge challenge for us in the midfield, but also a good challenge for the whole side.”
The 22-year-old Hannebery is on track to record his best season statistic-wise, averaging just under 28 possessions, including 10.9 contested possessions, per game and has recorded two 40-plus possession hauls this year.
While Hannebery was reluctant to discuss his own form, senior midfielder Jude Bolton was more than happy to sing the young Swans’ praises.
“He’s been enormous,” Bolton said.
“He took his game to a new level last year, and even in the Grand Final last year he was phenomenal, and his consistency and work rate has really stood out this year and he’s been fantastic.”
Bolton added that the senior players didn’t need to provide Hannebery with too much advice.
“There is no need to fill his head too much,” Bolton said.
“Hanners can overthink the game too much anyway, so it’s better to clear his head and let him play footy, and certainly he’s doing that and he’s in a good head frame and head space at the moment and we just want to keep him that way.”
With just six matches remaining in the home and away season, Hannebery agreed that it was important to keep things clear and simple for the remainder of 2013, saying the Swans needed to continue to improve and could not afford to look any further than this weekend’s battle with Richmond.
“I think it does take a while for the midfield group during the year to function well, and it can only take one poor week to go back to scratch, so we’re hoping to keep that going and keep working well together as a unit,” he said.
“We’re going to keep working hard at training this week on a few things we can improve on and we look forward to having a tough contest against a really quality Richmond midfield.
“We’ll make sure we keep trying to improve and it starts again this week when we try to get another win on the board.”
