ADELAIDE coach Neil Craig was frank and firm in his summation of his side’s disappointing 47-point loss to Hawthorn at Aurora Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

“The last quarter was disastrous on the scoreboard but our first quarter was poor as well,” he said.

“Two out of the four is not going to be anywhere near good enough against a side like Hawthorn and we got what we got.”

Craig pointed to a lack of ‘general hardness’ in both physical and mental aspects of the game as well as inconsistency costing his side what would have been its fourth win for 2010.

“We’ve just got to be demanding on ourselves, demanding on the players, on the team and individual players to keep pushing hard so we can eliminate some of the inconsistency we’re seeing.”

Craig also admitted costly turnovers and missed shots on goal had cost his side again.

“It does deflate but that’s all about the hardness of the game. That’s going to happen in every game. Those opportunities you get you have got to try to make the most of them. All sides talk about that.

“When there is disappointment because of a defensive error or an easy so-called miss, that’s the hardness we want to develop in our team. Just go back, get hold of it again and keep coming, rather than let it get to you.”

With a week off due to the split round, Craig says the group has plenty of hard work ahead.

“There’s no backing away from standards of what we require,” he said. “We took a step backwards today as a club. We’d been coming forward for a month and today we took a step backwards. It’s important we re-group and in the next game start to come forward again.

“At the moment it’s what you would expect in any change room after an eight- or nine-goal loss. When I say hard on people I don’t mean as in I’m going to belittle people or be brutal, it’s hard on standards. It’s about where we’re going. That’s what we need to be hard on."