ADELAIDE coach Neil Craig was delighted with his team overcoming the loss of Scott Stevens and tough conditions at Subiaco Oval to beat Fremantle by 24 points on Sunday.

Nathan Bock’s club-imposed suspension, and the loss of Stevens from a nasty knock to the head from Luke McPharlin's knee just before half time, left the Crows defence short.

Nick Gill also injured his hamstring and despite all that, Craig was delighted that his team came away with a pleasing win in conditions that reached 34 degrees at bounce down.

"Stevens came off early with a knock to the head and then one that you saw later, so in today's footy, that is always a disadvantage. To lose Gill also with a hamstring on a hot day over here where our record isn’t great ... our composure to stick with it was a great recognition for what our team came over to do," Craig said.

"Fremantle kicked five in a row either side of three quarter-time, but for our guys to end up winning by four goals was pleasing, particularly with what we had to deal with during the week with the Nathan Bock situation."

Craig wouldn’t rule out Bock returning to face Geelong at AAMI Stadium on Saturday night, but it will be a decision solely based on his off-field state.

"We need to hold our line on that one. I don’t know what the decision will be, but Nathan has some clear criteria that he needs to address before he is considered for selection," he said.

"That can happen next week, but it will depend on Nathan. It's important that the club has taken the stance it has, and now it's up to Nathan Bock to demonstrate clearly that he's in it for the long haul in terms of the change in behaviour."

While the Bock incident had a ripple effect throughout the club during the week, Craig was confident that it would have no impact on his players in Sunday’s game.

"I was confident that once that situation had been dealt with, that whilst they showed a degree of empathy for Nathan, they were also clear that the behaviour wouldn’t be tolerated," he said.

"They were really clear about the situation, and that's why I had huge confidence that it wouldn’t be an issue for us."

While turnovers were plentiful in the warm conditions and strong breeze, Craig was delighted with the composure of his team.

Andrew McLeod’s bouncing goal from outside 50 to level the scores early in the final quarter was no surprise for Craig, but the Adelaide coach was impressed with much of what he saw from Patrick Dangerfield, most of what Taylor Walker did, and how his undermanned defence stood up.

"I expect that of Andrew, and it was a crucial goal for us,” Craig said.

“I also really enjoyed the calmness of some of our younger players. Dangerfield showed some real composure, Taylor Walker did with some of the things he did, but he has to tidy up his 50m penalties because that is a huge penalty in our game, and the other thing I enjoyed was how our defence worked after losing Stevens," he said.

"They had to play small, but (Brent) Reilly on (Chris) Tarrant and the other match-ups were exceptional. Stevens was a huge loss for us after we lost Bock for the right reasons. That put us under huge strain with the positions Scott can play."