ADELAIDE coach Brenton Sanderson says the Crows are still 'ruthless' and will improve before the finals after Saturday night's shock 10-point loss against the Brisbane Lions.

The upset defeat leaves the Crows (15-5) vulnerable of dropping out of the top-two if Hawthorn can - as expected - account for Gold Coast on Sunday.

Sanderson was surprisingly upbeat in Saturday night's post-match press conference at the Gabba.

He said Adelaide would not sulk and use the upcoming eight-day break to lick its wounds ahead of playing Melbourne at the MCG.

"I told the boys to keep their chin up, make sure they recover, learn from the loss, walk out of the stadium with your head high and we'll get on with next week," Sanderson said.

"We're not going to, after a loss, just say we're no longer a good footy side, because we are."

Adelaide led by 38 points at quarter-time but were thoroughly outplayed for the remaining three quarters by the home team.

The Lions won the disposal count (367-329), contested possessions (149-139), tackles (56-51) and trailed narrowly in the clearances (33-34).

Sanderson said Adelaide also lost its discipline at times and stopped running.

"Our board tonight was full of red, which is a bad sign," he said.

"The numbers we really pride ourselves on, we got beaten at tonight. It doesn't mean we're a bad side, it just means we had a night where we couldn't get on top of the opposition.

"We just looked like it wasn't us a few times, giving away costly free kicks, being second to the ball, [our] method around the contest.

"We're still a ruthless side. At no point tonight did we throw the towel in or put the white flag up and say we've had enough, we kept fighting, we kept digging.

"We lost tonight because we did a lot of things wrong, but at times we just didn't take the game on.

"There's a few weeks until finals so we'll fine tune that and make sure come first week we'll be better."

Daniel Talia suffered a corked thigh in the first quarter and was subbed out at half-time, but Sanderson said that had little effect on the Crows' defensive unit.

He said despite a quiet night from returning spearhead Kurt Tippett (seven disposals, three marks and no goals), he was just glad to see him get through unscathed after a spate of recent concussions.

Michael Whiting covers AFL news for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_mikewhiting