THE Swans have paid a huge price for last Saturday’s Sydney derby win with Sam Reid ruled out for eight weeks with a quadriceps tendon injury and Lewis Melican potentially for three weeks with a hamstring strain.

Darcy Cameron and Harry Marsh are the likely candidates to replace injured pair.

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Already dealing with the off-season retirement of Kurt Tippett and season-ending knee injury to Sam Naismith, coach John Longmire has a massive headache ahead of Saturday’s clash with a resurgent Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium.

Reid was playing his first game for the year after missing the opening two rounds with hamstring tightness.

“It’s a tough game and it happened in the last five minutes when the match was in the balance,” Longmire said.

“It was not something that you can be conservative with if you are trying to win the game. It was very simple, he just turned, there wasn’t much in it at all. He has an extended period to get himself right, he’s a critical player for us.”

Injured Swans pair Lewis Melican and Sam Reid at Sydney training on Tuesday. Picture. Phil Hillyard Source: News Corp Australia

Reid, who was among Sydney’s best players with two important goals and his marking presence up forward in the Swans’ win over GWS Giants last Saturday night, missed the entire 2016 season with hamstring and calf injuries.

In a shocking finish to the match for the Swans, Melican hurt his hamstring in the same passage of play as Reid’s injury.

“He is going to miss a couple of weeks as well,” Longmire said.

“He did his within a second of Sam. It is unfortunate two of our better key position players went down at the same time.”

Longmire said Aliir Aliir was an unlikely replacement for Melican as he only played his first football match in five weeks in the NEAFL last Saturday.

“Aliir has missed five weeks of footy,” Longmire said.

“He played his first game on the weekend and played about 60 minutes. We are weighing up how much he needs, he might need a bit more game time considering he’s missed an extended period of time.”

Injured forward Sam Reid will miss eight weeks with injury. Picture. Phil Hillyard Source: News Corp Australia

The replacements could come in a combination of tall and small players with Zak Jones coming into consideration along with Cameron.

Jones has missed the last two matches with calf tightness but is expected to be available for Saturday. Cameron is yet to debut but would allow Sinclair to push forward in the same fashion as Reid did against GWS.

“Absolutely, he’s (Cameron) an option,” Longmire said.

“We could go with that model again and we may turn to that at some point. Whether it’s this week we haven’t made that decision yet. He’s been playing in the ruck ad doing quite well and we know he’s a capable forward.”

Marsh, a speedy defender, was among the best in the Swans’ reserves match against GWS last weekend.

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