Mumford was injured in the first quarter of the Swans’ 44-point win against the Western Bulldogs and played out the game, but he was clearly labouring in the second half and sat out most of the final term.
Swans coach Paul Roos said the former Cat would not play against the Lions and was only a 50-50 chance of lining up in the first week of the finals.
Roos said White, who started his Swans career as a ruckman before moving forward to good effect in 2009, was an obvious replacement for Mumford.
“Teddy Richards has done it in the past, Jesse White has done it in the past [but] it’s probably more likely to be Jesse White,” he said on Monday.
“We’ve got Ryan O’Keefe coming back in and obviously Jarred Moore will come back in as well, so we’ll probably restructure our forward line a bit.”
Roos said he had no concerns about changing the forward line setup in the wake of the Swans’ best win of the season, highlighting the potential return of Daniel Bradshaw in a fortnight.
However Bradshaw, who has been sidelined since round nine with knee and quad complaints, must prove his fitness with the Swans reserves this weekend to be any chance of playing in an elimination final.
“It’s been going well but I wouldn’t underestimate Daniel’s importance as we saw early in the season,” Roos said.
“He’d need to play in the seconds this week, which would be a good lead-in to the following week. If he didn’t play this week, I don’t think we’d bring him back the following week.”
While the Swans have hit top form, Roos was wary of underestimating a Lions outfit coming off a solid win against Essendon and boasting a rejuvenated Jonathan Brown.
Brown, who has struggled with groin and abdominal injuries in 2010, was back to his best with 16 marks and 4.6 in a dominant display against the Bombers on Sunday.
“They’re always tough at the Gabba and they had a good win on the weekend. Jonathan Brown looks healthy again and played extremely good footy,” Roos said.
“They’ve still got some real quality players - [Simon] Black, [Luke] Power and Brown are three of the best players in the competition. They’ll go in with some confidence after last week’s effort.”