ADELAIDE coach Neil Craig says the Crows can't afford to focus solely on finals if they are to continue to improve on and add to the game style they believe will deliver the club its next premiership.
The Crows are expected to need four wins from the remaining six games to claw their way back into the eight, but Craig said he would not sacrifice recent changes to the game plan or the club's long-term approach in order to pursue a September dream.
"If you concentrate too much on the end result, finals, finals, finals, which is what everyone talks about and people do the calculations ...
"I understand why they do it, but we as a playing group and a coaching group can't get caught up in that because then you lose your focus and your thought process about what we should be doing to get the result we want," Craig said on Friday.
"There are a lot of people who can focus on the end result for us and give us feedback on how many games there are and what you've got to do to win them.
"We've got 50,000 supporters doing that for us; we've just got to concentrate on our end. We can go two ways. We can persist with the situation we're in at the moment or we can let it consume us and we're going to persist; persist very strongly.
"I think it's important for us to hold our nerve, otherwise we start chopping and changing. Whilst we know where we want to go this year, we've also got to have an eye on long-term and some consistency in what we do."
Adelaide, which has lost the contested possession just three times this season, was beaten in that count by Port Adelaide last week, but Craig said the heat would be on his less experienced players in another key area on Saturday.
"Full credit to Port, but what I didn't like about last week was that our level of desire and intent, whilst it wasn't bad, was not at the level we need it to be at for long enough," Craig said.
"We've still got some players that are exploring that level, as in knowing it exists and that they can take themselves into that level. That's why we'll continue to push and push hard because it's an important area of the game for anyone, but it's extremely important for us.
"In the last four or five games we've been, if not ahead at half time, there's been nothing in it, apart from the Geelong game. That says were about the mark against some quality sides, but we fall away in too many areas of the game for periods of the game.
"You never play four full quarters of high-intensity football; no team does, but you can't have long periods in quarters or a total quarter [where you fall away] and that's what we've got to continue to strive for.
"A lot of our players know exactly what we're talking about. Simon Goodwin knows because he does it on a regular basis and he's been there as a player and done it for full games. Bernie Vince is still exploring it.
"Those types of players can do it for a little period of time, but to will themselves to do it for longer is a really important characteristic we're looking for. That's why we've got to keep the heat on that area."
