ADELAIDE'S on-field woes in 2011 can be fairly easily traced to its inability to get first use of the ball, but why that's the case is harder to discern.

North Melbourne had 14 more clearances than the Crows in Sunday's 47-point loss and 21 more contested possessions. It marked the fifth time this season they've lost both key categories, a stat more telling when considering they've lost the match every time that's happened.

Neil Craig reels off names like Nathan van Berlo, Scott Thompson, Richard Douglas, Bernie Vince and Patrick Dangerfield and wonders how this can be the case.

His faith in his personnel leads Craig to surmise that a structural issue, that he is responsible for, is behind the lopsided figures, but Douglas has a different take on the problem.
 
"It pretty much comes down to a mindset," Douglas said.

"We were second to the ball at the start of the game and I thought we worked our way back into it, but they clearly got back on top in that area.

"We got smashed in the clearances for the majority of the day. When you're not getting your hands on the ball it's hard to get a decent amount of forward entries.

"Our ball movement was poor. We kicked wide a lot and we didn't use the corridor well so we didn't really give ourselves a chance."

The Crows' inability to win their own ball against North resulted in a paltry 34 inside 50's. Kurt Tippett battled hard, but it's too much to ask of him and his forward line teammates to parlay that figure into a winning score.

The game that set alarm bells ringing for Craig was the Gold Coast encounter at AAMI Stadium in round eight. The Crows came back from an early deficit to win, but had 25 fewer clearances than the competition's new boys - their worst return of the season.

Criag knows where the issue is, but he's still working at finding out why it's become a problem.

"We've got to put a lot more time and resources into it and we will do that because it's hurting us badly," Craig said.

"It's producing too much pressure all over the ground. It's making us [need to] be super efficient in the forward line, which we were today, and … it's putting too much pressure on our back line."

Adelaide has just two players in the competition's top 50 clearance getters, in Scott Thompson and Brent Reilly, and Douglas said the team remains committed to finding a way to counter the clearance and contested ball issues that have seen the club drift to 14th on the ladder after 11 rounds.

"We just need to stay positive, learn from it and give each other feedback," he said.

"There's still half the year to go so we can't get negative. We'll be hard on each other and look to improve. There'll be no hiding.

"Today wasn't good enough and the last few weeks have been poor so we'll address a few areas and look to get better.

"There are a few technical areas that we want to improve on. We'll pick over that in meetings this week and do our best to work on it."