ADELAIDE forward Jason Porplyzia admits his side should spend more time kicking goals at training, but says it's hard to find the time with the demands of the modern footballer.

The Crows missed several straight-forward opportunities in Sunday's loss to North Melbourne, especially early, when a failure to capitalise helped the Kangaroos to a 22-point quarter-time lead.

Porplyzia, whose 12.5 this season validates his reputation as one of the League's best from a set shot, said the Crows were then forced to play catch-up football.

He said there was no special trick to improve goalkicking but said that in today's game, with the intense focus on fitness and defence, players found it hard to make time to perfect the art.

"If you want to get better at something, then you've got to practise it," Porplyzia said.

"Because so much time is put into other areas, you've got to recover, you've got to work on other areas of your game, sometimes that doesn't get the attention that it probably requires.

"We probably often don't have the time [to do more]."

The 27-year-old said the Crows usually only had one half-hour goalkicking session each week as well as "a little bit" after training.

Porplyzia said the emphasis on the increased physical demands of players in the modern era meant the fundamental skill of kicking goals had been somewhat left behind.

"That's an area that has not picked up [like] fitness and the recovery and all that defensive side of the game, game-plans and all the rest of it," he said.

"Kurt Tippett is the example I often use - he's worked really hard and spends a lot of extra time on his goalkicking and he's improved a lot.

"But compare that to guys who played 20 years ago who would go out before and after training and could practise and have 100 set shots … three times a week.

"We probably don't get that repetition and that practice that those guys had."

Accurate goalkicking would have helped Adelaide's cause on Sunday against the Kangaroos, but it wouldn't have saved the day.

The Crows were beaten at their own game, smashed in contested possessions 134-115; a statistic coach Brenton Sanderson has come to rate his team by.

Porplyzia said Adelaide's inability to win the hard ball against North Melbourne cost it dearly all over the ground.

He also said several players had told him they felt the side was flat in the warm up.

"I wouldn't be reading anything into that because you can sense that (flatness) on a number of occasions … and we come out and we just blitz the opposition," Porplyzia said.

"We can search for answers in a number of places, but we'll just diligently go through the review and work out areas that we can get better in."

Harry Thring covers Adelaide news for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_Harry