IF ADELAIDE is to be consistent, coach Brenton Sanderson says his players need to improve the basics.

The Crows managed to withstand several momentum swings against Gold Coast on Sunday before pulling away in the final term to a 32-point win, but Sanderson said simple skill errors continued to hamper the club's efforts.

Turnovers in defence saw the Suns gifted easy opportunities, particularly late in quarters when they kicked seven of their 11 goals.

They kicked five goals after the 25th minute mark of quarters and of their 11 goals for the match, five were from turnovers.

"Last week, from the zero to 10-minute mark of each quarter, Carlton outscored us by 23 points, in time on last week we outscored them by 24 points," Sanderson said.

"This week it was almost the opposite, we hit the scoreboard early, they got goals late.

"Sometimes it's just not executing the fundamentals at critical times, it was even experienced players today made some errors late in quarters … you just need to be a bit smarter with how you move the footy in attack and how you defend late in quarters.

"We’ve still got some teaching and coaching to do to ensure we’re improving as a footy team.”

Sanderson was also happier with his team's ball movement, which was more direct and aggressive.

“You probably noticed today, we talk the ball forward a lot more which I think was a key, particularly, when the rain came. There was less sideways and hardly any backward (movement)," he said.

"The boys during the week were trying to rip each other’s heads off at training. They’re a very proud team and are disappointed that we’ve lost a couple of games we probably should have won, but we’re back to 5-5. Internally, our belief, the way we’re training and preparing our players is no different to before Round One. Our players understand the way we want to play, we just need to replicate that winning form for longer in games. Today was more like a four-quarter performance. We had an even contribution from 22 players.

"We go to Perth next week off a win and, hopefully, we can replicate some of the good form from today next week.”

Sunday marked Taylor Walker's return to match-winning form, with the 24-year-old star booting five goals in what was his best performance since returning from a knee reconstruction.

Walker finished the game with 22 disposals, took 10 marks and had two goal assists.

Sanderson said the forward appeared to have again come to grips with the speed of elite football.

"The energy and the work rate's been there for the first couple of games, but we saw in the first few he was a little bit fumbly and made some poor decisions, and I think it took him a couple of weeks to get the AFL speed back," he said.

"Even early in this game he made some poor decisions.

"But to hit the scoreboard today was good for his confidence … ultimately he kicks five, that’s probably the difference in the game."

Crows ruckman Sam Jacobs was subbed out of the game at three-quarter time with a corked hip, but the club played down the seriousness of the injury.

Sanderson even said that he could have kept playing, but with a game next week against Aaron Sandilands and Fremantle, the decision was made to end Jacobs' day early.

"Jacobs has got a nasty cork in his hip flexor, so his ruck work was fine, it was just around the ground … Jacobs could have kept going," he said.

"We'll have to assess him throughout the week, he's coming up against probably the toughest ruckman in the competition next week in Sandilands."