TOM McDonald will have to prove his fitness prior to Melbourne’s Round 4 clash with Sydney after suffering a minor ankle injury on Friday night.

After going down in the first half of his side’s clash with Essendon, the Demon played out the latter stages of the game but has pulled up sore from the incident.

Melbourne’s Elite Performance Manager David Misson certainly hasn’t ruled McDonald out of Thursday night’s crucial match at the SCG but said he still has some boxes to tick in the lead up to the game.

“He’s improving every day and we’ll look for him to have a run tomorrow,” Misson told Melbourne Media.

“He’s probably going to be touch and go but each day we’re more and more hopeful that he’ll get up.”

Although the injury hasn’t caused too much damage, it was enough to sideline McDonald from Melbourne’s training session on Monday morning.

“It was a pretty solid roll of his ankle,” Misson said.

“He’s a real professional and he’s been looking after it really well.

“We’re pretty confident he’ll get up and get the job done, but we’ll wait and see.”