Neil Craig has refuted suggestions Adelaide's eight-point loss to Geelong in the NAB Cup grand-final thriller at AAMI Stadium was a 'reality check' in the wake of the pre-season hype about the Crows' long-term prospects this season.

"No, I think our players are very realistic about where we are," Craig said. "Just because someone outside the club, whether it be one person or a group of people, makes an assessment doesn't mean it's true.

"If you look back 12 months ago, there were a lot of assessments about us that weren't necessarily factual. I think the truth of the matter at the moment is people can say what they like and have an opinion - and it's nice to be recognised - but, whether it's a positive comment or a negative comment, the most important thing is that we understand where we're at.

"And a night like tonight enables that just to be cemented a bit better, if you like. And we do. I haven't smelt anything in our playing group to suggest they think they are the best in the competition at the moment - because we're not, quite clearly we're not.

"We've got a lot of work to do. Otherwise, we would have won that game tonight and we weren't good enough to do it.

"It will be a test for us. If you want to put yourself up to be the best, and we're not going to win every game, you've got to learn to handle that sort of thing very quickly and get ready to go. That's all part of our growth so we'll find out."

Asked whether he thought the win meant more to Geelong than Adelaide, given that the Cats had not won a day or night premiership since 1963, Craig said: "No, I hope not and I'm sure it's not.

"We're setting ourselves up - we want to win everything. Don't make any mistake, we're disappointed as a club because we thought we were playing good footy in the NAB Cup, and we were, but when the crunch really came we were found a bit wanting, so we have to accept that and get better.

"We've said from day one that our policy is to try some young kids, not to play people who are risks, get experienced in different rules …"

Craig said he thought there was 'too much noise in the data' to conclude that the Crows had revived memories of last September's finals by losing another big game at home.

"I just said to the guys their effort's been fantastic," he said. "They've trained really hard and throughout the NAB Cup as well. We've had one light week in that four-week period.

"We'll have another hard week next week, so their attitude to training and playing time has been fantastic. I can't ask any more of them. So when you wrap it all up, even though we're really disappointed as a club, our preparation for round one couldn't have been any better."

Craig said Adelaide would not play all three ruckmen - Matthew Clarke, Rhett Biglands and Ivan Maric - in the opening-round match against Collingwood at Telstra Dome on Monday night, April 3.