DAN Hannebery spoke with sydneyswans.com.au and gave us his thoughts on the 2010 season, his highlight and his biggest challenge...

It has been an amazing year for you. What is your highlight?
Winning the Elimination Final against Carlton was one of the highlights. That was the best thing all year.

Other than that I’ve just enjoyed being here in Sydney full time and enjoying the guys’ company and getting to know them all better. Now I know what it’s like to be involved in a footy club, especially one where you are away from all your family and use the guys as your support.

Brett Kirk’s last game, and being touched by him over the past 18 months has been something I will remember forever and I’ll try to keep in touch with him. He is someone I now look up to as one of the most inspiring characters I’ve ever met.

Being involved in those two finals was great and then missing out by a kick from going to a preliminary final, which just shows how good a year we’ve had.

Which of your team-mates impressed you the most over the year?
I’d say Kieren Jack. I will go to him for a bit of advice moving forward, on a few things I want to work on and improve significantly next pre-season, which I think he has already done. He has now become an elite A-grade midfielder. So I want to speak to him about how he kept improving and what he did.

Josh Kennedy really impressed me as well. His two finals, for a first year player here, and coming off 13 games in three years at Hawthorn, were fantastic.

What was your biggest challenge this year?
My biggest challenge was doing my shoulder in Round 6 and having to come back from that. Mentally I struggled with it the first week I came back. I couldn’t stop worrying about it and I was thinking about what would happen if I did it again and I had to miss the rest of the year. I catastrophise about everything so I was worried about that!

So I was rapt I was able to get through the year and play well and be involved in the side.

What areas of your game do you want to improve?
Definitely some kicking, decision-making stuff. And over the pre-season I want to keep up my running and my attitude towards training and my ability to take in information, listen and take it on board.

I get told and go 100 miles an hour but sometimes I don’t do what I’m told because I haven’t taken it in. They are the main areas where I want to improve but I also want to do a few other things with my speed and game plan, and hopefully that will happen over the pre-season.

Having won the Rising Star, will there be more pressure on you next year?

There might be a bit of perceived pressure to back up and have a better year next year. But once I get back into pre-season and have a couple of months of running I think everyone is going to be pretty confident and be able to take that into games next year.

I will speak to the coaches and players who’ve been in that situation and go from there.

Are you optimistic about the team’s prospects next year?
I am. There is going to be a huge hole left by Brett Kirk, we will have to rally together and try to fill it because a champion has left us. If we can fill that, we have got nearly everyone else still here, and another year of experience for the young guys, so I think we will be a better team for this year’s experience and hopefully a formidable opponent.

What will you do in your eight weeks off?
I will have a couple of weeks relaxing, catch up with some mates. I wanted to go to Bali but I can’t because I have to have a shoulder operation so I’ll just catch up with family and friends.

Dan in action during season 2010: