ADELAIDE forward Chris Knights has labelled Saturday night's loss against Collingwood as a performance the club could not be proud of.

The Crows led by 15 points early in the third quarter, but fell away to go down by 21 points.

The home side, which lost Nathan Bock (heel) and Patrick Dangerfield (back) to injury during the week, battled hard in a tough hit-out with Geelong last weekend.

Knights said Saturday night’s effort was disappointing in contrast.

“As a team, we were down a little bit tonight and that’s something we don’t expect from ourselves anymore. We’ve raised the bar over the last eight weeks and that [performance tonight] was just not us,” Knights said.

“We fell away from our game plan a bit. You only have to drop off that one percent and for Collingwood to lift up a notch and you get that sort of result.”

Coach Neil Craig accused his side of being slack in the costly third quarter.

Adelaide kicked the opening two goals of the term, but Collingwood rallied to pile on four unanswered majors and set-up and unassailable lead.

Craig said the Crows’ drop-off was realistic given the profile of the developing squad, but said his team would need to address such inconsistency quickly to participate in finals this season.

“We dropped away in the things that we know are important to make sure that our game plan works,” Craig said.

“Collingwood got through our defensive action far too easily for our liking and then all of a sudden they’ve got loose guys at the back ... That’s what happens if you don’t execute the zone correctly."