Ruckman Sam Jacobs says the Crows players are taking “full responsibility” for the Club’s inconsistent form in the first half of the season.

Entering the mid-year bye, the Crows are 11^th on the AFL ladder with a record of five wins and seven losses. This follows a 2012 season where Adelaide won 18 games and came within a goal of reaching the Grand Final.

Jacobs identified one simple reason for the team’s drop-off this season, saying too many players – including himself – had been unable to recapture their 2012 form.

“The strength of our group when we perform well is that we have weight of numbers, but we’re not getting that. The majority of us haven’t played to the standard we did last year,” a frank Jacobs said on Monday.

“It does get frustrating because things just aren’t clicking at the moment and we’re not getting enough contributors across the board. That’s why we’re being really hard on each other and demanding because we want to get that consistency.

“We’re working really hard to get our season back on track. We won’t give up on the season no matter what stage it is, we’ll keep fighting it out.”

Jacobs admitted it would be “really tough” for Adelaide to return to the final eight this season, but said he was confident the Club was on the right track going forward.

“We’re very confident in the team we’ve got. We’ve got a team that can be a premiership contender when we’re getting everything right,” he said.

“We’ve showed that when we play our best we can compete against the best teams. We saw that against Hawthorn and Fremantle, but the last couple of weeks have been really disappointing.

“We’re not executing the game plan. We’ve gone away from the things (that made us play well last year). Contested footy is one. We were No.1 in the comp for contested footy and stoppages last year, but this year we’re mid-pack.

“At the start of the season, we didn’t talk about finishing top four or anything. We just spoke about building on last year and maintaining that high standard. Unfortunately, things haven’t gone the way we would’ve liked.

“For the rest of the year, we’re looking forward to getting that consistency back in our game."

The profile of Adelaide’s list is also cause for optimism.

In Round 10 (the last round before the start of the byes), the Crows fielded the sixth-youngest team in the competition, with an average age of 24 years, 180 days.

Of the 31 players to represent Adelaide this season, 15 have 50 or fewer games of AFL experience. Promising midfielders Sam Kerridge, Brad Crouch and Jarryd Lyons, and young defenders Luke Brown and Rory Laird have played less than 15 games.

Key contributors Patrick Dangerfield, Rory Sloane, Taylor Walker and Daniel Talia are also yet to enter their prime, all aged 23 years or under.

Jacobs said the emergence of several inexperienced Crows had been a positive for the Club.

“We’ve found a few great young players,” Jacobs said.

“Sam Kerridge is probably the standout of the young fellas this season. We’ve got games into Rory Laird, Luke Brown and Brad Crouch – they are players who will be in the team for a long time into the future.”