ADELAIDE veteran Michael Doughty has lamented the drop-off in intensity that cost his side dearly against Richmond at the MCG on Sunday.

Despite their wayward kicking for goal, the Crows appeared destined to notch their eighth win of the season when they took a 19-point lead into the main break, but Doughty was dismayed by what unfolded in the second half.  

“We had great desire to win the footy in the first half. We were on top in the contested ball, but it was a game of two different halves. In the second they were first in which was disappointing,” Doughty said.

“After losing last week we pride ourselves on responding and we weren’t able to do it in the second half. It’s a hard lesson learned.

“We’ve got a young group and we’ve just got to learn that contested ball and that real desire and intensity on the footy is what wins games.

“It doesn’t matter how old you are though. You’re expected to come out and perform for four quarters and we couldn’t sustain it for the duration.”

Doughty conceded the team’s faint finals hopes had all but disappeared on the back of the 20-point loss.

“We’re not even thinking about September,” he said.

“We’re too far away from that. We’ve just got to worry about winning quarters of footy.”

Despite the disappointing result, Doughty pledged he and his teammates would leave no stone unturned as they look for ways out of the goalkicking doldrums.

“ We’ve got to face up to the reality that we need to get better in that area and the only place we can do that is on the track,” he said.

“There’s no point sitting on our hands and crying about it. We’ve got to get back out there and face up to what we served up there in that second half and fix it very quickly.

“There’s nowhere else we can do it, but on the track. We can’t rely on game day at the moment, so we have to make sure that every session counts.”