Adelaide coach Neil Craig believes he now has the right mix in the forward line to complement his team's outstanding defence, which after finishing No.1 in 2005, statistically remains the most miserly backline in the competition, having conceded just 491 points so far this year.

But speaking after his side dished out a 56-point thrashing to the Kangaroos at Telstra Dome on Sunday, Craig was adamant his side's offence has greatly improved this season.

"Yeah I do. I think we have a better structure and a better understanding of midfield to forward 50 than what we've had last year," Craig said.

"We're still a long way off on how we see it unfolding, but even today (Sunday) we saw some forward line entries of what we want to see, which will enable us to kick a bigger score.

"It's more about the efficiency. We've always been very good from a volume perspective of inside 50s for the last four or five years, but we've been heavily criticised and rightly so that we've become very wasteful with our forward entry and the best teams in the competition and the best people in life aren't wasteful people."

Adelaide has now accumulated 722 points in 2006 - equal with West Coast - while only Collingwood (811) and the Western Bulldogs (805) have kicked more.

But after a stunning opening term - statistically the best first quarter since the club joined the competition in 1991 - and an outstanding second half, Craig praised the Kangaroos for their efforts to fightback in the second term.

"I thought their lift and intensity was fantastic," Craig said.

"It was a big contrast and it caught our guys off guard and maybe as our intensity caught the opposition off guard in the first quarter and certainly their response caught us off guard and the reality was we weren't really able to recover until half-time on that, so I'd suggest a lot of the credit goes to the Kangaroos."

Craig said in a perfect football environment, he would like his side to play the type of football it produced in the first quarter on a consistent basis.

"Ideally, we'd like to think that we can just keep playing relentless football and we did for the first quarter," Craig said.

"But to the Kangaroos credit, their response, right from the start of the second quarter was what caused it, clearly.

"You could mount an argument that at quarter-time, I should've made the point more strongly and I take that on board of maybe talking about the response of the opposition in the second quarter, because they're not going to just continue to play like that and let that roll on for a full game.

"So I just need to think that through from a coaching perspective as well and make sure that I'm giving the correct messages and good information."