Adelaide coach Neil Craig insists he will not compromise his longer term vision for the Crows even if his younger players continue to be shown up by the AFL's top echelon in 2008.

Eschewing the safer, defence-oriented game of 2007 for a riskier attacking plan, Craig's Crows were on Friday night exposed as novices at the sort of barnstorming football Geelong have made their own over the past two seasons.

With a more youthful side than he has worked with at any stage of his Adelaide tenure, Craig declared he was intent on seeing them through to a more adventurous outcome in terms of game plan, despite a 0-4 record this year against the sides nestled in the top four.

"We need to do that; we need to do that, so there won't be any backing off on that," he said.

"You saw Geelong, but they're half a second (moving the ball on).

"That's what we've got to learn to do, you're not going to learn to do it and get better than that if you don't try, so there'll be no backing off from that area.

"That's exactly where we're going, otherwise we won't get to where we want to go.

"So that will continue and we'll be assessed and there'll be times when you're criticised because you're not doing it well enough, but there'll be no backing off in that area.

"(Geelong) were exceptional and I think everyone recognises they are the best team in the competition.

"What does that game add to our club? Recognition that that is the level.

"We've played against it, we've been exposed badly and we couldn't handle the pressure, so that's what we take out of it."

Utility Brad Symes, playing his first game since an early season ankle injury, typified Adelaide's two fold struggle to cope with Geelong while also trying to hurry themselves up when in possession.

Several of his kicks will not make for pretty viewing at review time, and he admitted as much while acknowledging that the Cats set the standard his teammates must follow.

"I think I was in the play a bit and found the ball not too bad there was probably two or three kicks where the finishing let me down and I'll get back out on the track this week and hopefully resurrect that," he said.

"We're probably just looking at the fact they play on so quick and move the ball really quickly, it doesn't give your defence time to set-up and the ball comes in pretty quick.

"That's the direction we're heading, we want to move the ball a bit quicker than we have so far this year and we tried to do that but their pressure was too good for us."

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