Coach Brenton Sanderson says Adelaide still has a “way to go” to become a consistently good team after dropping another close game, this time to North Melbourne in Hobart on Saturday.

The Crows got off to another slow start, but fought back to lead by 12 points halfway through the final term. Adelaide had opportunities to extend its lead and ‘ice’ the game, but led by midfielder-turned-forward Jack Ziebell, the Kangaroos clawed back.

Even after the Roos regained the lead late in the quarter, the Crows had chances to snatch victory but some poor decision making snuffed out any hope of a thrilling win over the finals-bound Kangas.  

“It’s the sixth time this year we’ve lost a game by less than two goals, so that suggests we’re not too far away but we’re still not good enough to be able to compete with those top-eight sides,” a shattered Sanderson said after his team’s seven-point loss.

“Too many times this year, the opportunity has been right there for us to grab and we haven’t been able to come away with the points. We have to find ways to get better in those moments, where we hit the front. because we should go on and win, but we let sides back into the game too often.

“When this season does end, we’ll look at ways to spend the summer teaching these boys how to handle late-in-game situations much better than we have this season."

The Crows were also left to rue missed opportunities earlier in the match.

In the second quarter, Adelaide had the momentum and dominated the inside 50ms 20-8 but could only put three goals on the scoreboard for the term.

“It’s been a story of our season, we haven’t been able to capitalise on our inside 50ms,” Sanderson said.

“In the second quarter, we locked the ball away in our forward half but didn’t come away with much (on the scoreboard). That’s an area we’ve got to keep working on because we just blasted it inside 50m. We didn’t lower our vision or put it to the advantage of our forwards.

Sanderson also identified outside run and defensive transition as areas for improvement.

“Our defensive action is what we need to work on most. We still give up too many inside 50ms,” he said.

“We allow sides to get out in space. The uncontested numbers today were really heavily in North Melbourne’s favour. We’re pretty good inside the contest, but we still need some speed and dynamic players outside the contest. That’s a discussion for the end of the season when we look at our squad.

“You can tell by today we’ve got a long way to go with our development and improvement.”

The Crows coughed up eighth spot as a result of the heartbreaking defeat in Tasmania and will now have to rely on beating St Kilda and getting favourable results in other games involving fellow contenders Richmond, West Coast and Gold Coast.

Adelaide takes on the Saints at 2:50pm (local time) on Sunday, by which time the Club will know its fate or the result required to snatch back eighth place. The match will be acting co-captain Rory Sloane’s 100^th game.

“We’ll have to wait until next Sunday to see where we finish on the ladder. We’ve missed a great opportunity to control where we go from here,” Sanderson said.

“We need to beat St Kilda next week and rely on a lot of other things to go right for us.

“We’ll be going in with the same attitude of trying to beat St Kilda regardless of what happens with results in the rest of the competition.”