The Western Bulldogs' stunning AFL turnaround earned a stinging rebuke from coach Rodney Eade after their 38-point loss to Adelaide at the MCG.

While Eade kept his usual calm demeanour in the post-match media conference, his comments were scathing in the wake of the 16.14 (110) to 11.6 (72) defeat.

"You're dealing with human beings, they're worse than horses - at least with horses, you know you can get a whip on them and give them a bit of a crack," Eade said.

"The easiest answer to go to is, subconsciously, do we believe our own publicity?

"We're a young, inexperienced team, we were written up (reasonably) last week, Adelaide are supposed to have a couple of injuries.

"Do players believe all that hype, which is absolute garbage in today's footy? - you warn them against it, but we were beaten in all facets today."

Eade also readily "named and shamed", saying top players Brad Johnson, Lindsay Gilbee, Daniel Giansiracusa, Jason Akermanis, Robert Murphy and Ryan Griffen were among the Bulldogs' worst against the Crows.

Adelaide shut down the Bulldogs' superb running game and the Crows' much-maligned forwards feasted on the rewards, with Scott Welsh and Nathan Bock kicking four goals apiece.

Tyson Edwards was outstanding in the midfield and Andrew McLeod destroyed the Bulldogs off half-back.

Last Sunday, Adelaide produced a shocker at home against Essendon, while the Bulldogs opened the season by taking apart Geelong for three quarters at Telstra Dome.

However on Sunday night, the same undermanned Bulldogs defence that dominated the tall Geelong attack was well-beaten.

"A lot of it is about the attitude and the players need to be given pretty-much all the credit for that," said Crows coach Neil Craig.

"It was mainly a change in attitude, plus some things we spoke about from our ball transition.

"We've done a little bit of work on that and it's amazing you can see some results on that reasonably quickly."

Adelaide were much more direct with their handball through the midfield, while ruckmen Ben Hudson and second-gamer Jon Griffin worked tirelessly.

But the win came at a cost - Robert Shirley could miss several weeks with a suspected broken left hand and Graham Johncock will also undergo tests after suffering an ankle injury.

Akermanis had a disastrous 250th senior game, limping off in the last term with a hamstring injury.

Defender Jordan McMahon was best for the Bulldogs and youngster Shaun Higgins kicked three goals.

The win gives the Crows some vital momentum heading into Saturday's showdown against arch-rivals Port Adelaide.

But the same 24-hour rule that applied after the Essendon loss will kick in again on Monday.

The Crows have a strict policy that 24 hours after a game, whatever the result, the focus shifts to the next weekend.

"You can't afford to wallow in self-pity....it was an important win for us today and there's a lot of joy and happiness and euphoria, but that's under the same rule," Craig said.

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