The once-top-four fancied Crows have slipped to 1-2 on the win-loss ledger after dropping both their home games this season, with last night’s 24-point loss to the Cats further soured when Seedsman suffered a suspected torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee late.

However, Crows Science and Medical Services Coordinator Steve Saunders this afternoon confirmed: “He has not injured his ACL.”

“We were obviously concerned for Paul given the nature of the injury,” Saunders told the club website.

“Follow-up examination post game was more encouraging than initial assessments and imaging undertaken today has proved good news for him.

“Paul sustained significant injury to capsular and bone structures that required MRI to understand these better. We will know more as to time frames for Paul as we assess his clinical progress over the next 5-7 days.”

Last night’s injury came after Seedman’s team-mate, defender Tom Doedee, tore his ACL and ended his season in the Crows’ opening-round home game against Hawthorn.

“It’s disappointing for those two guys, especially early in the year when you have put all the work and energy to getting yourself ready for a season,” coach Don Pyke said last night.

“That sort of rug pulled from underneath you is shattering for both of them and us as a group.”

The loss of Seedsman, who has played just 90 games in eight seasons due to injury, compounded a grim night for the Crows.

Adelaide slipped behind early with co-captains Taylor Walker and Rory Sloane, and then 256-gamer Bryce Gibbs, all giving away 50-metre penalties in the first 10 minutes of the game.

Geelong directly converted goals from the latter two penalties, with Pyke criticising the lack of discipline of his elder statesmen.

“It’s frustrating,” he said.

“Our first goals (against) were avoidable.

“You can’t start a game by handing away three goals to the opposition, especially quality opposition like we had.

“That is disappointing. That just puts you on the back foot.”

Geelong coach Chris Scott said the club wasn’t getting over-confident after its unbeaten start to the season, and it was pointless declaring the Cats a potential contender.

“There’s a long way to go,” Scott said.

“I think there will be a lot of contenders and a lot of momentum shifts throughout the year.

“It feels as if we have a bit of momentum building at the moment but we feel there’s a lot of improvement left as well.”

The Cats have beaten three clubs all widely fancied to play finals – Collingwood, Melbourne and now the Crows.

“It’s hard to work out where teams are within the competition,” he said.

“We haven’t done it for anywhere near long enough to start trying to rate where we sit in the comp.”

The Adelaide triumph was built by former Crow Patrick Dangerfield, whose 32 disposals including a dozen inside 50s and 10 clearances.

Dangerfield is clearly one of the players revelling in the new starting positions rule which affords him more space to work his brilliance at centre bounces.

“A few of the really good players in the competition must be thinking ‘why didn’t we bring in this rule a while ago’,” Scott said.

“Some of the good players were just (previously) getting clamped by plus-two, plus-three players behind the ball and centre bounces.

“But players who can win contests ahead of the ball are more valuable now than they used to be.

“It helps those guys. That was forecast – Dustin Martin and Pat and players like that, with power.”

-with AAP