It continued a horror start to the season for Craig’s side, with the Crows unable to wrest the momentum from the Bulldogs early, before being comprehensively outplayed in the second half and succumbing to a 49-point loss.
Despite his side equalling its worst start to any season, Craig refused to be drawn into a discussion on whether playing finals was now an impossibility.
“We’re really wasting our time talking about anything else other than the form we’ve got at the moment and how we’re going to try and improve it - that’s what the Crows' tribe would want to know,” he said.
“There will be no giving up on anything we do, we owe that to our members,” he said
“(We need) to continue to push hard, value games of football and not give games of football away on the scoreboard… we still value winning games of football.”
The Crows coach said the first quarter was encouraging but there was too little fight shown after the first break.
“After the first quarter (we took a step back),” Craig said after the match.
“We had a bit of the response at the end of the second quarter but we were very patchy after that and we were never really in the game.
“We started to see the same signs we've been looking at for the whole year.”
Those signs have been a concern for Craig who has watched on as the club's pre-season hopes of a top-four finish have been all but extinguished due to injury concerns and inconsistency.
Nathan Bock, Scott Stevens, Trent Hentschel, Brad Symes and David Mackay are just some of the important names featuring on an injury list that now extends to 11 players.
“We’ve got to be careful we don’t use that as a legitimate, major excuse,” Craig said of the mounting injury toll.
“I certainly expect more from a coaching perspective and from our team than what we’re seeing at the moment with the sort of players we’re putting together.
“It’s easy to say Stevens, Bock and go on and on ... I know it’s there and it does affect your continuity but we’ve got to be better than that.”
