ADELAIDE coach Neil Craig says a stirring last-quarter fightback against North Melbourne flattered his team, which had played “totally unacceptable” football for three quarters.

It was a Jekyll and Hyde performance from Craig’s men, who headed into the final quarter 54 points in arrears and seemingly devoid of any avenue to goal.

But through the efforts of Taylor Walker (three goals) and a midfield finally prepared to play on at all costs Adelaide piled on seven successive goals to give the Kangaroos a few nervous moments late in the match before holding on to win by nine points.

A clearly angry Craig said the last quarter merely hid the fact his team was uncompetitive for the majority of the match.

“You need to be careful with that last quarter; that flattered us,” he said at his post-match media conference.

“For three quarters we were totally unacceptable, so the reality is we could’ve got beaten by 10 or 15 goals. Instead it was nine points.

“I think with that sort of performance we’ve got to make sure it is crystal clear and not sugarcoat it … we won’t be shying away from the first three quarters.

“For the last two weeks I thought we were making progress but tonight was a big step backwards.”

The most glaring problem for Adelaide was their lack of contested possession, with the Crows trailing in that key statistic 122 to 106.

Craig was at a loss to explain the astonishing turnaround in the final term.

“It would be nice to know the reason,” he said.

“We need to work our way through and try and find some valid reason why that occurs.”

The result leaves Adelaide languishing near the bottom end of the ladder with just one win from eight matches and looking a shadow of the side that played off in a semi-final last year.

It’s a situation not lost on Craig, who publicly acknowledged that any hope of a September appearance has now been extinguished.

“We’re so far away from playing finals type footy - forget it,” he said.

“Irrespective of whether we’re in the finals, that’s not the issue for us, the issue is the type of football we’re playing.”

Adelaide now has eight days to regroup before taking on a faltering Brisbane Lions outfit.

“We’ve got to make sure our standards stay high and not give games away, with that sort of result tonight there’s question marks over all of us,” Craig said.

“The players will be down but we need to respond quickly.

“The game doesn’t stop because of the way we performed and that’s all the part of the mentality of your high performance athlete - you’ve just got to keep going.”