Acting co-captain Patrick Dangerfield says it’s time for the Crows to “stand up” on the big stage against Collingwood next Thursday night.

The sold-out game will be the first opportunity for Adelaide, which has a bye this weekend, to respond to a disappointing loss to Melbourne last round. The Crows haven’t beaten the Magpies since Round One, 2009, in Taylor Walker and Jared Petrenko’s debut game for the Club.

The players and coaches have a compulsory four days off this week, but Dangerfield said the group would spend a lot of the time stewing over the loss to the Demons.

“There’s no doubt the playing group was incredibly disappointed with the performance we put in,” Dangerfield told FIVEaa.

“We will stew on it over the next four days. We’ll certainly have time to relax and unwind, but it’ll be in the back of our minds. We know we need to play a heck of a lot better footy than what we’ve played in the first seven rounds.

“We have a great opportunity coming up against a quality side like Collingwood next Thursday, who we haven’t beaten in quite a long time certainly since I’ve been at the footy club.

“There’s no bigger stage. It’s Thursday night and it’s a sell-out. The time is now for us to stand up.”

Dangerfield said the most frustrating aspect of Adelaide’s performance last weekend was that the team knew how the Demons would play, but was unable to implement its plan to combat it.

“We spoke about Melbourne’s use of their plus-one behind the play and how we needed to combat that,” he said.

“Sando spoke about that with us, it was our ability to actually implement our style (from the start) rather than the coaches having to come down at quarter-time and say, ‘Hey boys, you’re not doing what we spoke about’.

“We’re not starting well enough either. We’re behind the eight-ball from the beginning of games. We need to play with the same desperation we showed in the last quarter in the first quarter. That’s not just banging the ball forward … but we played with a real ‘if it’s not now, it’s never (attitude)’. We have to show that desperation in attack and in defence in the first quarter.”

“When an opposition does kick two or three games in a row, we need to be able to stem that flow quickly. That doesn’t mean playing negative and dour footy, it can still be attacking but having better method and working really hard to block for each other or work into space to allow someone else to lead up.

“At the moment, we’re really stationary and almost panicky when the opposition gets a roll on. We need to be able to combat that with really good defence and methodical attack.”

Dangerfield is expected to be fit to take on the Magpies despite a sore ankle.

The Crows currently sit one win outside the top eight, with a record of three wins and four losses. Dangerfield was confident Adelaide could get its season back on track and reward the members and supporters, who’ve endured some frustrating footy in the opening seven rounds.

“We’re just not getting enough of us (players) contributing the way we want. When we do, we play some ripping footy. We’ve played some outstanding footy against some quality opposition, like Geelong. But at the moment it’s for 10 or 15 minutes. I don’t care who the opposition is, if it’s for that amount of time you just won’t win games of footy,” he said.

“I want to thank our fans for how loyal and supportive they’ve been. I believe we have the best fans in the competition. They continue to support us and it (the sell-out against Collingwood) shows they are again next Thursday. It makes a huge amount of difference to us … we need them there supporting.

“We’ll play some better footy and make them proud of the way we’re playing.”