Australian football now has an incident to rival Diego Maradona's infamous "hand of God" goal at the 1986 World Cup.

Western Bulldog Jason Akermanis' goal-line punch was adjudged a major to Adelaide's Jason Porplyzia, a score that played a large part in allowing the Crows to scramble into fourth spot with an eight-point win at a sodden AAMI Stadium.

The Crows trailed for most of the first three quarters but drew level with the Dogs at the last change and kicked fortunately clear to win 10.16 (76) to 9.13 (67).

They will now be likely to play Geelong in an away qualifying final next week, having also earned a double chance.

Adelaide can only be tipped out of fourth if St Kilda beat Essendon by enough to close a five-point percentage deficit.

Defeat was difficult for the Dogs to swallow, but it had no material influence on their finals fate - they have been destined to face Hawthorn next week for more than a month.

Nathan van Berlo (two goals) was outstanding for Adelaide after a quiet day last week against St Kilda, and he received plenty of help from the likes of Michael Doughty, Andrew McLeod and Tyson Edwards (three goals).

"I certainly thought our group responded bigtime from our performance against St Kilda, inside 50m entries were 57 so we've gone from 37 to 57, so hopefully that will continue," Crows coach Neil Craig said.

"Western Bulldogs were a bit better than us early and until we adjusted to the wet conditions it looked like we'd be in a bit of trouble, but once we did that the fight of our playing group was just fantastic."

Edwards' duel with Akermanis was one of the most engrossing aspects of the match, Nathan Eagleton, Daniel Cross and Lindsay Gilbee also prominent for the visitors.

A wave of pre-match optimism swept the stadium with the news that Port Adelaide had done a quite unreasonably generous favour for the Crows by beating North Melbourne and so opening up fourth spot.

Adelaide were given added impetus by the late withdrawal of former Crows ruckman Ben Hudson (hamstring) from the Bulldogs 22, his place taken by Wayde Skipper.

A pea soup of a day at West Lakes made precision football difficult, but the Bulldogs' extra touch of cleanness was rewarded with a narrow halftime break.

For periods of the second Adelaide laid siege to the Dogs' defensive 50m zone, but a series of shoddy kicks prevented them from making the inroads their territorial advantage demanded - a failing epitomised when Nick Gill's mark of the week contender was followed by a poor kick.

Though the rain eased in the third, the game remained a slog as Adelaide scrapped to draw level.

Never far from the headlines, Akermanis was to again be the centre of attention when Porplyzia was credited with the pivotal first goal of the last term.

Goal umpire Darren Trengove appeared to overrule the opinions of the boundary umpires before signalling six points.

Kurt Tippett's strong mark and goal gave Adelaide a 14-point gap, but a reply from ex-Crow Scott Welsh and then Ryan Griffen's uncanny long range torpedo - after noting the goal square was unguarded - set up a frantic conclusion.

Dogs coach Rodney Eade said he was happy with his side's level of competitiveness leading into their qualifying final.

"Both teams made a lot of mistakes which was expected in the wet and maybe just at crucial times they had a little more poise than we did at certain stages," he said.

"(It was) the sort of game that was great for us going into the finals against a very competitive side, and we certainly thought we held our own."

Dogs fullback Brian Lake was reported for making high contact to Scott Stevens in the second term.

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