Adelaide defender Mitch Hinge says the side is focusing on sticking together, following its tough start to the season.

The Crows suffered their fifth loss of the campaign when they fell to Essendon by three points at Adelaide Oval on Friday night.

Despite almost snatching the win in the dying seconds, the hosts ran out of time and succumbed to a 10.18 (78) to 11.9 (75) defeat.

Speaking to the media on Monday, Hinge said players and coaches were frustrated with their form but needed to remain connected and support each other.

“What’s really important is that we stick to it as a group and we want to improve,” Hinge said.

“At the end of the day, we didn’t get the job done ourselves and we’ve got to wear that.

“It’s disappointing and we’ve got to live with that but at the end of the day, we’ve come in today knowing what we have to work on.

“We’ve got to take accountability as players and just get back on the track and keep working and things will turn.”

Adelaide lost the contested possessions (138-143), as well as the clearances (42-43), and Hinge said that was an area which would take focus on the track this week.

“We were really poor with our contested footy… We were down in our contested ball and ground ball gets and tackles,” Hinge said.

“We want to base our game around being hard at the footy and our contest side and bring that every week, non-negotiable.

“I think when you don’t bring that and you finish the game and you lose, it’s bitterly disappointing.

“I think at times during the year we’ve shown bits of how we want to play but the disappointing thing about Friday night is that we didn’t do it for long enough and from the start of the game.”