ADELAIDE is just a middle-of-the-road football club, Richard Douglas says.

In the lead-up to Sunday's vital match against Carlton, the Crows were challenged by coach Brenton Sanderson to back up their impressive win over Collingwood in round 10. They failed.

The Crows were listless for three quarters before almost stealing victory in the dying moments.

Instead of jumping into the top eight with a win, the loss means the Crows are locked in a four-club group four points behind eighth-placed North Melbourne. Douglas said it was exactly where Adelaide belonged.

"We're middle of the road and that's how we're playing our footy; we're very inconsistent, we've been up and down a lot," Douglas said.

"Bad kicking's bad footy and our field kicking was pretty poor [on Sunday] and in front of goal we probably hurt ourselves – particularly in that first half.

"We're probably getting what we deserve at the moment."

Although admitting his club's current form was far from that needed to play finals, Douglas insisted its best was capable of challenging the League's best sides.

But consistently finding that level of play has proven nearly impossible.

Before outplaying Collingwood in round 10, the Crows were convincingly beaten by the other top-eight sides they had faced this year in Geelong (38 points), Port Adelaide (54 points) and the Sydney Swans (63 points).

"We just need to address a few things and if we can do that I think, as I said, our best is good enough," Douglas said.

"We're only half-way through the season and we're a game out of the eight so we're still working our butt off to become a top eight side."

Adelaide's slow starts remain one of its most significant issues.

The Crows have won just two opening terms this year and were forced to chase the Blues through the second quarter and into the third.

Douglas was mystified as to why his side seemed unable to fire early but said the club had been experimenting to try and find an answer.

"We're certainly trying things with our start, we're trying to address that and work on a few things but it's just not happening for us at the moment," he said.

"[We've tinkered with] structuring things when we get to the ground, changing times of meetings and warm-ups and those sorts of things, a few subtle things.

"It's a bit of a mystery to us as to why we can get ourselves up for the Collingwood game but be so poor against Carlton."

Meanwhile, the club is hopeful star midfielder Patrick Dangerfield suffered only minor damage after the acting co-captain played on in obvious pain on Sunday after a heavy hit to his back.

A club spokesman said that although it was likely Dangerfield would receive precautionary scans, he would be fit to line up against Gold Coast on Sunday.