SYDNEY ruckman Kurt Tippett has been all but ruled out of Friday night's massive clash with Collingwood at the SCG with an ankle injury.
Tippett rolled his left ankle twice in the opening quarter of the Swans' loss to the Western Bulldogs last week, and played no further part in the game after he landed awkwardly following a marking contest in the second incident.
The Swans will turn to either Callum Sinclair or mature-age draftee Darcy Cameron to replace Tippett against the Pies, with both players in solid form in the NEAFL on Saturday.
Tippett escaped without any structural problems to the ankle, but did damage the ligaments surrounding the joint.
While Swans coach John Longmire conceded that the ruckman's chance of lining up against the Magpies this week were slim, he could spend just one week on the sidelines.
"He's walking around on it OK, which is a good sign, but this early in the week he's unlikely to play," Longmire said on Monday morning.
"We think he'd be almost a certainty to play against West Coast (in round four).
"We're lucky enough that we've got two boys in the reserves who can come in and play that position for us if we need them too.
"We're comfortable in bringing either one of them into the team, and I'm on the record as saying it's very important to have a quality group of ruckmen, and we're fortunate that we do."
While the Swans look certain to be without Tippett against Collingwood, they're also no chance of seeing injured pair Jarrad McVeigh (calf) or Isaac Heeney (glandular fever) this week.
Both players were restricted to a running program at training on Monday, and with their round four clash with West Coast to be played at Domain Stadium on Thursday week, a round five or six return seems the best case scenario.
Longmire's other concerns to come out of the loss to the Dogs were with the umpiring on Friday night, and he revealed that AFL umpires boss Peter Schwab had called him the following day to discuss the issue.
Defender Callum Mills was controversially penalised for a deliberate rushed behind late in the match with the Swans four points behind, with Bulldog Liam Picken kicking a goal from the resultant free kick, but Schwab gave the decision the tick of approval.
The Swans average 29 free kicks conceded per game over the opening two rounds of the season, and Longmire said he had asked for clarification about the interpretation of the holding the ball rule, among others.
"We've given away the highest amount of free kicks in the competition to this point," he said.
"We need to make sure we're doing the right thing, or if we're doing the wrong thing we need to get better at it, and Peter is going to get back to me with some ideas, and hopefully we can feed that back to the players.
"There's nothing I can do about it, I just have to worry about what I can control, and that’s the team's preparation
