AFL 2024 round four LIVE updates: Demons face Crows and are pushing to be first to four season wins

Come on, Crows, it ain’t rocket science.

If you blaze away inside 50m against Melbourne there’s a fair chance that Steven May and Jake Lever will pick it off.

Which is precisely what is happening. Lower the eyes, boys, lower the eyes.

Anything Izak can do, Kysaiah can do better.

The brilliant Pickett took a mark in the Adelaide pocket – didn’t that used to belong to Eddie Betts? – and slotted a 35m banana kick, or in SA terms – a beautiful check side.

The Demons back in front by three points.

The danger man, Izak Rankine, is on the board. The mercurial forward scooped up a loose ball with typical brilliance and under pressure, snapped a brilliant goal – Adelaide’s first of the game.

As the Crows had turned the game into an arm wrestle, the Demons will be concerned about the grimace on key defender Steven May’s face.

Returning from a broken rib, May has looked ginger in a number of marking contests with big Adelaide forward Taylor Walker. Not that it has hindered his aerial dominance.

May has twice outpointed and outmarked Walker.

Adelaide lead Melbourne by three points

And the first goal goes to Harrison Petty.

The Demon forward was awarded a free-kick after being held 35m from goal and duly slotted the kick.

Demons take a 6-point lead.

Is the Jack Ginnivan disease catching? Kysaiah Pickett looked to be taken high in the opening minutes, barely 20m from goal, but the umpires blew play on.

We’ve started. We are up and away.

Crows coach Matthew Nicks is borrowing a line from The Castle and hoping that the Gather Round atmosphere that has descended on Adelaide will help inspire his winless side.

“We are in a really good space at the moment,” Nicks told Channel 7 before the game. “Adelaide is alive and the boys have a really good vibe. The challenge will be in what we are up against. They are a pretty good mob.”

Nicks said it would be more a matter of relying on their system rather than shutting down Melbourne superstars such as Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver.

“They have so many big names on their team, so you can’t go after all of them. I have a massive amount of respect for who they are.”

While his brother Tom McDonald is running around for the Demons tonight, Fremantle utility Oscar McDonald is recovering after knee surgery today.

The Dockers reported the best possible news for Oscar who didn’t require a full reconstruction as initially feared, he is yet to get a return date but the club said he would likely be fit to play later in the season.

Melbourne have named Taj Woewodin as their sub for tonight’s clash against the Crows.

The son of the 2000 Brownlow Medal winner, Shane Woewodin, made his Demons debut last year and is lining up for his seventh game in the red and the blue.

The 21-year-old has mainly played across half-forward for Melbourne and could be sighted in the second-half if the Demons are struggling to hit the scoreboard.

The Crows have named midfielder Sam Berry as their sub. Berry was drafted with Pick 26 in the 2020 draft.