Swans forward Sam Reid says he is finally over the ‘niggles’ that held him back earlier this season.

The talented 20-year-old, who signalled his intention to remain a Swan long-term after signing a five year deal with the club at the end of last year, struggled to have an impact in the early part of the season due to a number of minor injuries that prevented him from full training.

Now, as the second part of the AFL year swings into action, Reid said he is back to full fitness and ready for the season ahead.

“I’m really good, I’ve got over a lot of my niggles and I’m feeling fit and have been able to train fully, which is good and it is doing wonders for my confidence,” he said.

“Being able to train every session, and for the whole session has been really good.”

Reid said his injuries limited him to light training, which he believed impacted his confidence on-field.

“I just had a few niggles and a bit of a sore shoulder and a few other things, but it was nothing too major as I was still able to play,” he said.

“I don’t think it was the way I was playing, it was not being able to train and that probably hindered me a little bit.

“When you train you get your confidence up because you do everything you can to go into the weekend feeling really good, so not being able to train was a hit to my confidence.”

After failing to kick a goal between rounds 4 and 7 this season, Reid has shown plenty of improvement in the last month, kicking two goals in each of his last four matches.

The forward said improving his goal kicking has been a major focus over the last 12 months.

“Since the end of last year I have been putting a lot of work into (goal-kicking) with a lot of different coaches and they’ve been really supportive and I think it’s starting to come off,” he said.

“The main thing was transferring what I had been doing in training into games, and I think we’re starting to see a consistent action.

“Last year we were noticing in training what I was doing for goal kicking was slightly different to what I was doing in games and it was a matter of transferring what I was doing in training into games.

“I think I’ve been able to do that most of the year this year, and it’s definitely helped.”

Reid will be a key target up forward for the Swans in this weekend’s second Sydney Derby.

The 20-year-old said he is expecting a much-improved Giants side to the team the Swans defeated by 63 points in round one.

“We expect them to come out really hard,” he said.

“No doubt they’ve come out and shown that they want to be a contender in a few years, and they’ve played some hard footy.

“They’ve been playing some really good footy in the last few weeks and they definitely have a crack in their games, so we expect nothing less than what we’d expect from a top side.”