Crows coach Brenton Sanderson has expressed immense pride in his team’s courageous win over the Brisbane Lions on Sunday.

Adelaide was reduced to two players on the bench in a horror second quarter at the Gabba.

First, forward Tom Lynch was taken off on a stretcher following a sickening head-on collision. A mere 10 minutes later, the stretcher was called out again for defender Andy Otten, who crumpled to the ground clutching his knee after a seemingly innocuous incident. Neither player took any further part in the match.

The visitors led by 44 points at the main change and didn’t relent in the second half. The Crows piled on 13.7, including 9.4 in the last quarter, to Brisbane’s 3.6 after half time to motor to a 105-point win. The loss was Brisbane’s biggest-ever at the Gabba and Adelaide’s score of 25.18 (168) was the highest against Brisbane at the venue since 1991.

Sanderson was rapt with his team’s spirit and endeavour.

“Often, we played a straight bat with wins but I’m so proud of our players today,” he said.

“It’s one of the youngest Crows teams that’s played. We had nine players with under 50 games of experience today. We were down to two players on the bench before half time and it was a hot day.

“It’s difficult to win up here. That’s the Lions’ worst loss at the Gabba ever, so that’s something for our group to be proud of. They’ve played some really good footy. I know they didn’t start the year well, but ‘Leppa’ (Coach Justin Leppitsch) has done a fantastic job teaching these young players.

“If you’re a Crows fan, you should be so proud of what you saw today because that was a young team that just kept their foot down the whole way through. We need to learn from it and that ruthless attitude.

“The challenge for me as a coach is to ensure we turn up with that same aggressive mentality next Saturday night against a really hot team in Richmond at home.”

The Crows had 13 different goalkickers in their record win.

Only one player, Brad Crouch, reached 30 possessions but another eight had in excess of 20 touches.

“It was a team effort and that was the most important thing,” Sanderson sad

“‘Tex’ kicked six, but it was a team effort. Today, our execution was much better. The effort has always been there, but it’s the execution that has let us down at times this season.

“We were still very wasteful in front of goal. We missed some absolute sodas today. We got a little bit fancy at times trying to share it around too much. Eddie Betts kicked 3.1 and had six score assists … just kick the goal, Eddie! He wants to keep sharing it around.

“We shoot ourselves in the foot sometimes trying to bring other players into the game when we probably should take ownership and nail the goals ourselves.”