It’s been an unlucky 12 months for Sydney Swans midfielder Tim Schmidt, but things are starting to look up.

Suffering one injury after another, Schmidt is now just happy to be stringing consecutive games together for the Reserves team in the AFL Canberra competition.

After a knee injury saw him miss half of the 2008 season, Schmidt was on the mend before injury struck again at the start of the pre-season.

“My knee started to flare up again and started to get really sore so just before Christmas I had another arthroscope on it,” Schmidt said.

"After Christmas… everything was going right and I was just about to do some sprinting just before I started to train and then I tore my hamstring.

“Once that was coming good my quad started to play up…so that kind of held me back for a couple of weeks as well.

“So touch wood, hopefully that’s all past me now and hopefully I can stay injury free for the rest of the season.”

Schmidt has been impressive for the Reserves since his return against Eastlake two weeks ago, and he hopes to continue to improve in coming weeks.

“I’ve been reasonably pleased with the way I’ve gone in the past couple of games, obviously I’ve had limited [game] time coming back after such a long time.

“Hopefully now I can get some match fitness and get some full games and we’ll take it from there.”

Schmidt has played 17 senior games since debuting in 2006 and admits it’s "not as many senior games as I probably would’ve liked".

However, the 23-year-old hopes that once he returns to full fitness he can push for a spot in the seniors line up.

“I’ve been lucky enough to manage a few (senior games) over the time I’ve been here at the Swans. It’s a real thrill, playing in front of so many people and playing at the highest level of football.

“Playing with your mates that you’re around every day, it’s a really good feeling. Especially when you win and the team's up and everything’s going well. It’s amazing.’’

Schmidt hopes that the rest of his season won’t be spent on the sidelines and wants to get back into the form he was in prior to his injuries.

“Over the next couple of weeks in particular just to get full games and get some match fitness into me. And still play that good football and consistent football and hopefully there might be a spot for me to play the last few games in seniors.”

The Swans beat Ainslie for the first time in 2009 last weekend, putting them back into the top four with five rounds remaining.

“It was good to have such a good win like we did. Some of the older senior boys like [Amon] Buchanan and [Luke] Ablett back in the side helped things a bit as well,” Schmidt said.

“Hopefully we’ve set a benchmark for the rest of the year and hopefully we can get a few more wins and stay in the top four.”

This week sees the Swans play at home against Tuggeranong for the first time this season.

After two losses to Tuggeranong in Canberra so far in 2009, Schmidt is hoping his team can put in a good performance at the SCG.

“I’m pretty sure that we’ve got pretty good numbers again for the game. Last time we played them in Tuggeranong we played pretty poorly and got beaten pretty convincingly,” he said.

“I guess the real focus will be to continue our form over the past couple of weeks. Even though we got beaten against Eastlake we didn’t play that badly either.

“[We have to] just keep that form coming into this game and put some real pressure on the opposition and hopefully we can have a result the same as we had on the weekend.”

The Reserves take on Tuggeranong in their round 14 clash at 10.50am on Saturday at the SCG in the curtain raiser to the Essendon Bombers vs Sydney Swans match.