Coach Brenton Sanderson says he was thrilled with Adelaide’s ‘ruthless’ attitude in the 135-point win over Greater Western Sydney at Skoda Stadium on Sunday.

The Crows led the inaccurate Giants by 25 points at quarter-time but really got going in the second quarter, piling on 7.3 to the home team’s 2.3 to extend the margin to 55 points at the main change. A six-goal third term from Tom Lynch helped Adelaide streak to a 98-point lead at three-quarter time.

The visitors also outscored GWS seven goals-to-one in the final term to secure a comprehensive victory.

“I was pleased we kept the foot on the throat and were ruthless right to the end,” Sanderson said after the game.

“We still took a little while to click into gear, but when we play as a team and our method around the contest is good we’re hard to defend. We can move the ball well and score quickly.

“We were coaching right to the siren and making moves. We wanted to make sure we got exactly what we wanted for 120 minutes. I was proud of our players.

“You didn’t see any of that cowboy, ‘Hollywood’ stuff late in the game. They respected the game and played it out to the finish.”

Adelaide’s score of 29.13 (187) was only one point shy of equalling the Club’s highest-ever score: 30.8 (188) against Essendon in Round 10, 2006. Half of the Crows team scored goals on Sunday, and five of those 11 (Lynch 10, Patrick Dangerfield four, Josh Jenkins four, Sam Kerridge three and Bernie Vince two) kicked multiple goals.

“The way our forward line was structured today; Nathan van Berlo, Sam Kerridge, David Mackay at times, Lynch, Josh Jenkins, Shaun McKernan and Jason Porplyzia – we did throw a lot of different looks at GWS,” Sanderson said.

“We put Dangerfield, Thompson, Sloane, Douglas and Vince through that deeper forward role. We’ll keep looking at that because it worked for us a times. Dangerfield kicked four again today. He’s a really difficult match-up in attack.

“The most pleasing thing was that a lot of different strategies and structures worked today, but we’ve still got areas to work on. We’re a very young group. We can’t afford to get carried away with this win.”