The midfielder, who sustained the injury when he twisted awkwardly in a tackle during the final term of Saturday’s match, has been diagnosed with syndesmosis, an injury to the ligaments that run between the fibula and tibia in the front of the ankle.
Speaking to SwansTV for the HCF Injury Update, Swans physiotherapist Matt Cameron said the club would be cautious with Hannebery’s recovery over the next few weeks.
“At the moment he’s on crutches and we’ll get him off them next week and we’ll see how things progress,” Cameron said.
“At the moment he’s really just in a healing phase without taking any force through the ankle, which we’ll start doing next week.
“We’ll build him up from there and we’ll hope to have him walking around and running by the end of next week.
“We’ll then build his running and agility from there and if he can do it sooner, then he’ll be able to play sooner.”
Cameron said syndesmosis, which saw co-captain Kieren Jack miss six weeks with a similar injury in 2011, can be more severe than a common ankle strain and usually requires a more patient approach.
“Those sorts of injuries to the ankle are worse than the normal, simple ankle strain,” he said.
“There are a couple of ligaments that run in between the two leg bones just above your ankle joint and when you injure those, it has a lot bigger bearing on how you take weight through your ankle.
“They need to really mend before you’re able to take weight or put force through your ankle and change direction and so on.
“That’s why we’re looking at that sort of time frame.
“Dan’s fortunately only injured one of (the ligaments) and we’re hoping that it will go better than a four-to-six-week period.”
In positive injury news, Kurt Tippett has made good progress in his recovery from a minor knee injury.
Cameron said Tippett, who underwent arthroscopic surgery last week, has already resumed running and is on track to return to team training next week.
“He had a ‘scope last week and everything has pulled up really well,” he said.
“He’s gone really well since then and he was able to start running yesterday, so we’ll do more running tomorrow and he’ll be increasing his speed-work and agility, and we hope to have him training next week.”
Cameron also confirmed that Ben McGlynn, who missed last Saturday’s match with a fractured thumb, should also return to training next week and could be in line for the round 15 clash with GWS.
“He’s got a fracture at the base of his thumb and unfortunately it was just too sore to be able to play with,” he said.
“It’s improving slowly and we’re expecting him to play next week.”
Lewis Roberts-Thomson (calf), Aliir Aliir (toe) and Harry Marshy (hamstring) should all return to training this week after missing the Swans reserves clash with Sydney University, while Tom Mitchell (ankle) and Dean Towers (cracked rib) will miss another week with their respective injuries.
