Plenty has changed in AFL coaching over the last two decades, but some things stick.

Way back in the early 1990s, when Neil Craig was starting his coaching career at SANFL side Norwood, he stressed the need to score in bursts during a game.

The rookie coach wanted to develop a side that could knock an opponent off-balance with four or five goals in as many minutes.

Reminded of this after Saturday's 30-point win over Carlton at the MCG, Craig, the current Adelaide coach, just smiled warmly and walked away.

Trailing by three points more than halfway through the third term on Saturday, the Crows hammered the Blues with four goals in six minutes on the way to their 16.15 (111) to 11.15 (81) success.

"You'll find it often in tight games, there can be a little window where the whole game can get opened up - the thing I liked about our whole squad on Saturday was their persistence," Craig said during the post-match media conference.

Adelaide were 10 points down at halftime and looked in big trouble, often showing a lack of fluency in their movement of the ball.

But Craig was more worried about their defensive work around the ground and made this a focus for the second half.

As they had done leading into the match, they also spoke during the long break about the need to do well at the MCG.

Before Saturday, the Crows had only won three of their last 10 matches at the ground.

"We don't get to play here very often, a lot of our players have never played here, so to come here and experience a really tough game and come out victorious is pretty important," he said.

"We all know it's a world-famous ground, it's where the ultimate game is played and all clubs have an ambition to be here at that time."

Midfielder Tyson Edwards was best afield with his 29 disposals, Brett Burton kicked four goals and Robert Shirley's tagging job on Blues captain Chris Judd was outstanding.

The Crows defence also double-teamed, and even triple-teamed, Carlton full-forward Brendan Fevola, restricting him to 1.3.

After Richard Hadley was a late withdrawal for Carlton with a groin injury, they also lost Bret Thornton (knee) and Adam Hartlett (hamstring) by halftime and this severely curtailed their ability to rotate players off the bench.

While the Blues never looked likely to mount a late fightback, a controversial incident midway through the final term killed off the match.

An innocuous-looking gesture from Carlton defender Jarrad Waite - he punched the ball into the crowd as Bernie Vince put through a goal - earned the Crows a free and another shot at goal from point-blank range.

Blues coach Brett Ratten admitted the decision by umpire Ray Chamberlain "did (bewilder) me", but he was more worried about giving away some "soft" goals in the third term.

"We didn't make the most of our opportunities, but they did reduce our flow and our impact going inside 50m," he said.

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