Matildas-mania could work in Crows' AFL favour: Nicks

Adelaide Crows head coach Matthew Nicks hopes Matildas-mania will be a distraction for Lions fans. (Joel Carrett/AAP PHOTOS)

Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks hopes Matildas-mania will help his Crows storm Brisbane's AFL fortress at the Gabba.

But Lions coach Chris Fagan doubts that will be the case as the premiership contenders put their unbeaten home record on the line in front of another full house. 

Nicks's Crows meet the Lions on Saturday in an AFL fixture that begins just 15 minutes before the Matildas' Women's World Cup quarter-final against France a few kilometres away at Suncorp Stadium.

Nicks hopes the Matildas will draw some of the crowd from the Lions' AFL den.

"Hopefully that takes away from the crowd a little bit because if I could, I'd be watching the Matildas as well," Nicks said.

But Fagan says strong ticket sales don't bode well for Nicks.

"We get a lot of energy from our fans and they have been particularly good all year, they have turned up in droves to most of our games," Fagan said.

"Our players feed off their energy so the more of them that turn up ... the better for us.

"When you go to Adelaide, the Adelaide crowd make you feel really uncomfortable.

"I'm hoping our crowd can make the Crows players feel really uncomfortable."

The third-placed Lions, yet to lose any of their nine home games this season, have recalled ruckman Oscar McInerney from an ankle injury to replace Darcy Fort.

Fagan's charges host a Crows outfit vying to stay in the hunt for a finals berth - Adelaide begin the round in 11th spot, four premiership points shy of eighth.

Fagan believes Brisbane learnt valuable lessons from losing to Gold Coast and pipping Fremantle in the past fortnight - clubs also battling to sneak into the finals.

"It's like every game is a final," Fagan said.

"That's the mistake we made against the Gold Coast, we underestimated how desperate they were to keep their finals hopes alive.

"They went the journey in that game and we didn't quite.

"But I thought we learnt the lesson from that in the Fremantle game last week ... they brought not just their best footy, but their best effort and we were able to be resilient enough to stay in the fight and win.

"We get another opportunity to put that into practice this week.

"We know it's going to be a finals-like game. We know what's coming, the last few weeks have prepared us well."

The Crows have lost utility Chayce Jones to a season-ending foot injury and dropped Josh Rachele from their starting 22, with Luke Pedlar recalled after being rested last week.

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