CROWS coach Neil Craig says his side has been given a tough lesson in pressure football by the West Coast Eagles.

Adelaide suffered a surprise 50-point loss to West Coast at Subiaco – their sixth defeat at the hands of the Eagles in their past seven clashes

The Crows were kept to a solitary goal in the opening half and again could only manage one goal in the final quarter courtesy of an interchange infringement by the Eagles.

Craig pulled no punches in his assessment of Adelaide's ability to cope with the West Coast’s relentless attack on the ball.

“We had very few good performers and so whilst I thought we battled on, we were never able to get any momentum,” Craig said.

“They were a much better side on the night, so all credit to them. I thought their fierceness and their will and their want was fantastic.

“There was pressure all over the field. They continually pressured us in all areas of the game and we didn’t get any flow in our game.

“All our goals came from hard work, a lot of (shots) were under pressure so you get the number of points that we kicked (17).”

Craig said his players would learn from being exposed to that sort of pressure and would be better prepared in the future.

“We need to be a bit realistic about our performance tonight,” Craig said.

“It was a tough lesson for us to learn (but it) exposes a lot of our players very clearly to another level of that sort of intensity that exists in the AFL.

“For our younger, less-experienced players to come up against that and say ‘God, is that what it’s all about’, that’s about all we can take out of the game.”

Craig said he had not seen the interchange between young Eagles Ryan Davis and Tim Houlihan which had triggered a free kick and 50m penalty and resulted in a goal to Ivan Maric in the final term.

But he was glad that his team was on the right side of the infringement.

“We didn’t kick a goal in the last quarter, the interchange kicked us a goal,” he said.

The Crows now face Essendon next Friday night in Adelaide.