ADELAIDE coach Brenton Sanderson has questioned his side's competitive desire after the Crows were comfortably out-tackled by GWS on Saturday evening.

Despite winning the match by 46 points, the Crows managed 10 fewer tackles than the Giants after registering 28 less than the Hawks last week.

Sanderson said such a performance was "unacceptable".

"It's a little bit of intent, a little bit about the desire to tackle and they've got a fair bit of ability to do it but sometimes it's just the mindset," he said.

"We've got an eight-day break, we'll be tackling [at training] this week, that's two weeks in a row it's been unacceptable.

"Conversely too, when we get tackled we get stripped of the ball, we cough it up too easy.

"If there's one area we need to improve on really quickly, it's our method, it's our technique, the intent."

After a physical pre-season, Sanderson said his side had no excuses for the lack of tackles it'd laid over the past two weeks.

"We certainly should be able to match any side with our tackling technique and ability to tackle - we've put a couple of kilos [on] and hopefully [that has] given the player a bit more confidence to put themselves in that position," he said.

The Crows let an impressive start to Saturday's match slip in the second quarter when they let the Giants back into game.

Sanderson said his players got "handball crazy", but after giving the team a spray at half-time, he was pleased with the second half.

"Full credit to GWS, they really came to play tonight and at times they beat us inside and spread outside, and they just kept fighting," he said.

"I gave them a bit of a bake at half-time and to their credit they responded.

"Our third and fourth quarters were probably more how we expect to play."

Sanderson also admitted his side lacked small players in the soaking conditions, after Ian Callinan was omitted from the side with a calf injury and Jared Petrenko was knocked out in the game's opening contest.

"It looked like we were a bit top-heavy the way the conditions were," he said.

"At times we had 'Tippo' (Kurt Tippett), (Taylor) Walker and (Shaun) McKernan in our forward line and probably didn't get that front and square pressure that we've had.

"(Jared) Petrenko went down in the first five minutes, we lost (Ian) Callinan before the game, so you take (Richard) Douglas, Callinan and Petrenko out of your forward mix and we probably just looked a bit too top heavy."

Harry Thring covers Adelaide news for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_Harry