Crows just 'living in the moment', says coach Brenton Sanderson

ADELAIDE is entrenched in the AFL's top four but Crows coach Brenton Sanderson is adamant his men will continue to "live in the moment".

Crows v Fremantle

ADELAIDE is entrenched in the AFL's top four but Crows coach Brenton Sanderson is adamant his men will continue to "live in the moment".

Despite positioning itself strongly with an 8-2 win-loss record after Saturday's 29-point win against Fremantle at Patersons Stadium, Adelaide is refusing to consider a double chance in September.

Instead, Sanderson is more concerned the stunning momentum built by his Crows will be broken while having the bye in round 11 before tackling St Kilda on June 15.

"We won't talk about that until later in the season," said Sanderson when pressed on readjusting his goals for the top four.

"But obviously we're more than happy to be sitting where we are at the mid-season break.

"We'll sit back and watch some games next weekend and ensure we're really well positioned for a really solid second half of the season."

Many critics expected the Crows to stumble through a challenging five-week block, which ended with victory against the Dockers. But Adelaide passed its critical test to record a 4-1 win-loss count by also defeating Sydney, Geelong and Carlton while losing to Collingwood.

"We've been pretty good at not getting ahead of ourselves in anyway so we've been really humble with our wins and we've ensured that we've kept a really strong focus on our next opponent," Sanderson said.

"We've never really talked about a five-week block or looking too far ahead.

"The players have been outstanding at just focusing on the next contest.

"So for this week it was Fremantle and we'll talk a lot about St Kilda next week but at no point did we say: 'Listen, we've got a really tough month or this block of games is really hard'.

"As much as we can, we've just tried to live in the moment and that's probably been a strength of the group, contest by contest, match by match, we've tried to keep the focus really narrow."

With Sanderson set to welcome back wingman David Mackay (hamstring) to face the Saints, his focus now moves to the AFL tribunal after Bernie Vince was reported for striking Fremantle's Zac Clarke in the third term.

While the first-year mentor is concerned about Vince's availability, he is also mindful the Crows midfielder's indiscretion cost his team a valuable goal when the Dockers were storming back from a 36-point deficit.

"I must admit I haven't seen it but I did see the green slip which came through before which said he is reported," he said.

"We'll have a look at the incident and try and ensure that he gets off."

"We did some silly things, I talked about poise and composure through the last quarter - there wasn't much poise and composure through the middle half of the game - we just didn't think our way through situations.

"But we had the ability to fix it when it mattered. That's why this group has been getting results - they've changed things on the ground and shown great leadership."