"There's the issue of contested ball, which has been well documented during the week, there's the issue of persistence in doing things better with the way we play, some patience and the issue of timing, which has been well documented as well," Craig said after the Crows had trained at AAMI Stadium on Friday.
He said he accepted the blame for not reacting quickly enough to the Tigers' defensive game plan that helped them to a three-point win last Saturday.
"It was a good learning experience," Craig said. "I take total responsibility for the timing issue. You either make a decision too early in this game or you make it too late. Ideally, you want to make it at the right time.
"Clearly, we wanted to persist with what we were doing. We thought there were some other issues with our game that we weren't happy with and we thought we could get those better. Plan B was a bit late."
Craig said he thought Carlton would 'push numbers back' against Adelaide, but he added: "Most sides do that now. It's not a matter of flooding. What we saw last week was not trying to come forward - just keep possession of the ball."
Asked whether he thought it was time for the AFL to look at introducing laws, such as not being able to kick the ball backwards (in defence) to cater for the 'keepings-off' tactics, Craig said: "I don't think so, not at this stage. It'll work its way out. Suddenly it was put into place and it got some publicity.
"Now people are talking about it happening, now people are talking about defending it. That's the way things evolve. I think it's great. I don't think there needs to be a rule change."
Were Adelaide's coaches flexible enough with decision-making on game day?
"We're no different from the players," Craig said. "We're all in the learning process and doing things better. There are going to be situations I get involved in that do very well … and others where I make an error.
"And you need those situations to say, 'we didn't quite do that well enough' - (it's) good experience, pay a penalty perhaps, get criticised, that's warranted. I don't have a problem with being criticised. I've spoken about that before. But we learn and the key to it is that we do learn. We'll get an opportunity, maybe tomorrow, to do it a bit better."
Asked whether he had sought opinions from outside the club this past week, Craig said: "You have people outside the club who are away from the emotion of the game, if you like, who can actually tell you the way it is.
"The players do their own critique. We do our own critique on the coaching group. There are three or four different sources we all get information from.
"My timing was pretty poor. Clearly, if I had my time again, the timing would be different."
Responding to criticism that the Crows had been 'arrogant and a bit naïve', Craig said: "I don't know about arrogant. It's a pretty humbling game, this. I think you need a large degree of humility in this game because you never know what's going to happen.
"It's about continuing to improve, looking for ways to improve and if you make an error, you can use that. So it's more about improving rather than arrogance."
Craig said Adelaide was 'very poor' in the contested-ball area against Richmond and would have to improve against Carlton.
"That's just a cornerstone of the game," he said. "You can't have big fluctuations in that. You've just got to make sure it's pretty rock solid and it gets at least your share of the ball rather than too far one way.
"The easy answer to all that, of course, is attitudinal. You go straight to intensity or people getting ahead of themselves or whatever, but, clearly, Richmond need a fair bit of credit. They were very good in that area, as well. We just need to get back to a standard we've displayed this year. We're not aiming for a level we've never achieved. We've just got to get back to that level."
Asked how the players had responded to the criticism this week, Craig said: "We've got a very resilient group of players. At this level of sport - and it's the highest level in the world we play in - it's reported upon, it's critiqued, so you take all that. You've got to take it.
"To have success you've got to have setbacks. You won't get just all success, and it's your ability to take the criticism, look at it - is there an element of truth in it … yes, no? - and respond. They understand that. It's not all plain sailing and it won't be. It'll get worse than this at some stage."
