Retired Swans midfielder Paul Williams has revealed he put off getting scans on his injured collarbone for fear of bad news and required pain-killing injections just to get on the training track.

A veteran of 306 AFL games with Collingwood and Sydney, Williams last month announced he intended to retire at the end of the year, but was forced to fast-track his plan on Tuesday because of the need for season-ending surgery.

The Swans will miss the 33-year-old as they try to resurrect their slumping season, but Williams is adamant the AFL premier needs just one strong performance to revive its ailing defence.

Williams will now take a couple of weeks off and is yet to decide whether to help Sydney in an off-field capacity for the remainder of the season or leave for Melbourne and "get the ball rolling for myself after footy".

The two-time Swans best and fairest winner broke a collarbone last season and refractured it after the pin inserted in it broke and he admitted on Wednesday the pain had become "unbearable".

"I got to the stage where I had to even have some injections to train last week, so it started to get a little bit unbearable and something that I had no control over and it was difficult to do most things out there," he said.

"I knew I needed injections to play and we had to try it at training to make sure that it worked, so that was one of the reasons why we did it, but also because I was finding it hard to catch the footy."

Williams said he knew that his collarbone "wasn't right" but initially avoided getting it scanned.

"Scans normally give you bad news so I was putting off that for a fair while," he said.

"In the end our doctor said that we really needed to scan it just to see, because it was getting sorer and sorer."

Williams, who expects to undergo surgery next week, said there had been "some interest" in his services but was coy about revealing specific details and stressed he hadn't spoken to anyone yet.

"I haven't been able to do anything with that because of the fact that I've still been playing footy, but now I might be able to get an opportunity to speak to some," Williams said.

He wanted to stay within the football community and was interested in recruiting and mentoring young players.

"I need to sit down with the family and work out what's the best for all of us really and then we'll work out exactly which way we want to go," he said.

Sydney has lost three of its last four games and faces a daunting assignment away to second-placed West Coast this week.

"I'm sure that we've got so many good characters in the group that the form is only one good win away from turning around," Williams said.

With Williams moved to the long-term injury list as per AFL rules, midfielder Simon Phillips, 19, was elevated from the rookie list to the senior roster.

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