GWS 4.5 6.7 11.7 14.7 (91)

Goals - Adelaide: Betts 4, Atkins 3, Jenkins 3, McGovern 2, Cameron 2, Douglas 2, Knight 2, Mackay, Menzel, Smith, Milera GWS: Cameron 4, Smith 3, Scully 2, Greene, Lobb, M Kennedy, Johnson, Patton

Best - Adelaide: Betts, Laird, Cameron, M Crouch, Jenkins, Atkins, McGovern, Talia GWS: Williams, Scully, Mumford, Greene, Kelly, Smith

Injuries - Adelaide: McGovern (head) GWS: Mzungu (hamstring)

Crowd: 43,993

The GWS Giants will return to Sydney licking their wounds and nursing their pride after the club's heaviest loss in two seasons, a 56-point drubbing at the hands of a red-hot Adelaide Crows.

Tendai Mzungu looks set to miss several games after leaving the ground in the second quarter with a left hamstring injury while Jonathon Patton, Zac Williams, Jeremy Cameron and Dylan Shiel all came from the field at various stages on Sunday afternoon following heavy knocks.

Those four are expected to be fine for Saturday's round-two clash against Gold Coast at Spotless Stadium, while Jacob Hopper looks the likely replacement for Mzungu.

Irrespective of who runs out against the Suns, coach Leon Cameron will be demanding a much better effort from his highly fancied troop, who were beaten all over the ground in front of 43,993 fans at the Adelaide Oval. Not since round 21, 2015 have the Giants lost by such a margin.

"Their work at stoppage was far better than ours which is really disappointing," Cameron said.

"Clearly on occasions today we didn't dig in and didn't deal with it. The disappointing part is that we need to be a little bit more hungry around the ground.

"There'll be some players disappointed in their performance and I'm not just talking about our kids, I'm talking about fifth, sixth year players that we expect more of when the whips are cracking.

"They've shown that they can bounce back and I'm confident that we can address some of the issues and look forward at having one huge crack at the Suns next Saturday."

The ease at which Adelaide were able to shift the ball from the centre of the ground into their forward line will be forthright in Cameron's thoughts this week.

GWS started the better and threatened to run away with the game midway through the second quarter before Adelaide seemingly flicked a switch and took full control, washing away the flag-favourite hype that has clung to the Giants throughout the preseason.

"The talk's come from you guys, not from us, we've been saying all along that the competition is as even as it will get this year which is fantastic, and you've already seen results over the weekend to say how even is this competition," Cameron said.

"We came up against a very, very good team. They were too good for us today and that's going to happen in this competition if you're not absolutely cherry ripe in every game, then you'll get beaten.

"Even if you are cherry ripe every game, there's going to be some great footy and you're not going to win all those games. They were better than us and credit where credit's due."

Adelaide produced 11 individual goal kickers in the roasting South Australian heat without their spearhead Taylor Walker who was still nursing a hamstring injury, pocket rocket Eddie Betts leading the way in booting four electrifying majors.

Rory Atkins and Josh Jenkins managed three apiece while for the Giants, Cameron finished with four after kicking a goal in each quarter.

"We're not focusing on one guy kicking goals or targeting guys, we want to move the ball in a way which gives us ultimately the best chance to score," Crows coach Don Pyke said.

"I was proud of the team today, I thought in the conditions we were physically and mentally strong to be able to get that result. It was more the eagerness of what we were able to create."

An eight-goal third quarter seemed to have broken the Giants' back but Cameron and then Devon Smith, who managed all three of his six-pointers in that term, gave GWS a sniff of hope going into the final change trailing by 31 points.

The margin reduced to 26 points midway through the final quarter before Adelaide shifted into overdrive and accelerated away to lay their own claim to premiership favouritism.

VOTES GWS v Adelaide

(James Buckley)

Betts (Adelaide) 9

Laird (Adelaide) 8

Atkins (Adelaide) 8

M Crouch (Adelaide) 8

Cameron (Adelaide) 8