ADELAIDE coach Don Pyke says he expected his team to go deeper into the finals and wants his club to 'be better than good'.

For the second year in succession Adelaide was bounced in week two of the finals, this time humbled by the Sydney Swans by 36 points after conceding seven first-quarter goals.

Five things we learned: Sydney Swans v Adelaide

Pyke, who has now finished his first season in charge, said the Crows had taken steps forward, but conceded the Swans had shown them there was still a long way to go.

"Tonight was an opportunity against a good side like Sydney. We came here with a clear vision to perform well and expected to win, and weren't able to do that," he said.

WATCH: Top five plays from Syd v Adel

"The game is based around winning finals, and we have some areas we've got to keep working on and we've got to improve on to do that, otherwise we'll sit as a good footy club, and we don't want to be a good footy club, we want to be better than that, and to do that we've got some work to do.

"If we walk out of there happy with our performance this year, there's no road to progress through being comfortable and being happy.

"We need to sit down and work on it in the off-season and through the pre-season."

Although saying it was too early to identify exactly where Adelaide needed to improve most, Pyke said the Crows had an excellent foundation.

He said after finishing fifth at the end of the home and away season, the Crows thought they could make a deep run into September.

WATCH: Don Pyke's full post-match press conference 

"Overall we've improved, we take some positives away, but there's clearly a number of areas we want to get better at," Pyke said. 

"I think we've made some improvements, (but) we've got more improvement to make. 

"Some of those things are related to our style, some are related to our personnel and they're individual areas for improvement, and some will be related to off-field things that we can keep working on with our individuals in terms of our educations and leadership."

Pyke said after giving up the big early lead and having to battle without injured defender Jake Lever (ankle), he was pleased the Crows made a game of it in quarters two and three.