Adelaide want to rid themselves of the tag of being a good side, but not quite good enough to win the biggest games against the best AFL sides.

In his fourth full year as coach of a team that has won a lot of games under his leadership but not yet reached a grand final, Neil Craig is trying to instil the sort of attention to detail associated with great sides, not merely good ones.

Like then-rookie coach Terry Wallace's line in the 1997 documentary Year Of The Dogs - "If I see one guy go out there getting a pat on the back for a good effort, I'll spew up!" - Craig is tiring of tight losses to better sides.

This year, the Crows have fallen just short of the Western Bulldogs and Hawthorn, while last year they were little more than a goal shy of eventual premiers Geelong.

In 2005 and 2006 they undid the good work of excellent home-and-away performances by losing consecutive preliminary finals to West Coast.

Last week's four-point loss to Hawthorn appeared to hit Craig hard, giving impetus to his resolution on Friday.

"I thought our competitive nature, our intensity and our want to play a certain style against Hawthorn, based on the way they set up, was all very, very good," Craig said.

"But in the end it came down to real attention to detail with some execution things.

"If you're a supporter looking in, you'd say it was pretty basic stuff that we should be doing - it will be the little things that we need to tidy up on a consistent basis otherwise we'll continue to be known as a side that has a go, but doesn't get there.

"We're aware of that and that's why we'll continue to push hard with all our players, especially our less experienced players."

Craig said the players' lofty expectations for themselves had to be balanced by the knowledge that they won't be fulfilled unless elements of their game were tightened up, namely goalkicking and disposal under pressure.

"We've said it before, but our group has got high expectations of themselves and we need to make sure that area of our game is always ingrained, but if you want to be the best it's that attention to detail," he said.

"We haven't quite got it yet and it doesn't happen overnight, but it won't happen if you don't identify it and put the heat on ourselves."

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