SWANS star recruit Kurt Tippett is certain to come straight into the team to play Port Adelaide in two weeks after ruckman Shane Mumford suffered a depressed fracture of his cheekbone in Saturday night's 77 point thrashing of the Crows.

Mumford will be operated on this week and is expected to be out for two or three matches opening the door for Tippett.

Prior to Mumford's injury coach John Longmire refused to commit to playing all three of Sydney's ruckmen ( Mumford, Mike Pyke and Tippett) in the same team.

"Obviously with Mummy (Shane Mumford) having to get his cheek bone fixed up there is a spot there,'' Longmire told the Daily Telegraph.

"He was a big chance to play anyway. We just have to decide how much game time he plays.''

Tippett has been not played an AFL match in nine months, his last outing was playing for Adelaide in the Preliminary final against Hawthorn where his four goals nearly earned the Crows a spot in the Grand Final against the Swans.

The 202 cm forward/ruckman has been on an intensive training program for the last three months but has no match fitness.

In Mumford's absence Longmire is expecting Tippett to carry a large slice of the ruck workload with Mike Pyke.

"He'll need to play a big more than a half, if you are going into an AFL game of football you have to be prepared to play a lot more than a half,'' Longmire said.

Unfortunately for Tippett and the Swans their reserves have the bye as well as the senior team meaning the power forward will have no match practice at all.

While Tippett would like to be playing there are plenty of Swans players who are happy to have the mid season break right now.

Fourteen players have played all 11 games this season, including midfield stars Dan Hannebery, Jarrad McVeigh, Josh Kennedy, Ryan O'Keefe, Kieren Jack and veterans Adam Goodes and Jude Bolton.

"I think it's come at a good time,'' Bolton said.

"We've been on the road a bit and we're back there again in a couple of weeks when we resume against Port Adelaide.

"We can take stock and do our mid year review on Monday and the guys get the chance to have a breather and set themselves for the back end of the year.'' While some teams struggle to find form after a week off the Swans had no problem with the break last year.In fact the round 12 bye was followed by a run of seven straight wins.

"They train today and then come back on Friday and have a really solid session on Saturday,'' Longmire said.

"Some of the players have had really big workloads so they'll enjoy freshening up for a couple of days.

"We don't have the weekend off we have the time off during the week and that's the time to give it a rest.

"That's what we did last year and followed a similar process and we'll do the same freshening them up physically and mentally.''

When the Swans return to Adelaide to play Port in two weeks time Tippett's reception looks certain to be a hostile one.

While some are predicting Power fans will cheer for Tippett for leaving their fierce rivals the Crows there is the real possibility Adelaide supporters will turning up to the match just to vent their feelings about Tippett's departure.

"There were a few people at the airport yesterday asking where Kurt was,'' Bolton said.

"If he does go back (to Adelaide) he'll need a Pope mobile.''