Week one of pre-season has been a long time coming for Tom Derickx, who suffered a season-ending hamstring injury in July this year.

The ruckman, who made a bright start to his first year at the Swans in 2014, playing 12 senior games, was placed on the long-term injury list after a seemingly innocuous hamstring injury suffered at training required more time than expected to repair.

After almost six months on the sidelines, Derickx returned to the training track on Monday morning and updated SwansTV about his progress.

“I’m going well and I’m up to date with my rehab,” Derickx said.

“I ran the three-kilometre time-trial yesterday and got a PB, so the next step is just getting back into the skills.

In 2015, 'Nominating your Mate' could put you in the driver's seat of a new Volkswagen Polo

“I think I start kicking the ball again on Friday and then I’ll hopefully join in at full training when the older boys get back.

“It’s been about six months since I did it, so it’s been a slow process, but it’s looking good now.”

Derickx’s injury, which occurred in the club’s training session in Perth before the round 16 clash with West Coast, was supposed to set him back just one week, but the uniqueness of the injury saw the ruckman sidelined for the rest of the season.

Derickx admitted it was difficult to look on from the stands as his team mates played finals football.

“It was a weird injury in that we didn’t think it would be so long, and we had planned to have me play the next week,” he said.

“It was the hamstring tendon, and not one of the main ones, but it was one of the little ones that snapped when I was jumping on the other leg.

“It was to do with the pressure build up and it just snapped, and it was something the physios hadn’t seen much of before, so that’s what made it a frustrating thing.

“I just had to play it day by day and it was hard, but I’m back now so that’s the good thing.”

With such a long break from football, Derickx headed overseas to America to catch up with his brother and also made the trip back home to Western Australia, before starting his long rehabilitation process.

Now back at the club, Derickx said he intended on playing even more senior football in 2015, and had his sights set on lining up in round one.

“It’s always competitive when you’re competing for that one spot, and it started yesterday with the three k-er,” he said.

“It will build from that and when ‘Taubo’ (ruck coach Stephen Taubert) comes back it will start to get a bit more aggressive, but it’s all good fun though.

“My goal is to play round one, and then to build on that.”