Adelaide's players are still trying to learn to do what's best, instead of what comes naturally.

The Crows take on Geelong on Friday night having momentarily forgotten a fruitful attacking game plan that had its genesis the last time the Cats visited AAMI Stadium.

Close losses to Hawthorn and Brisbane have seen the re-emergence of the stilted, slow-build style the club tried in 2007.

Crows coach Neil Craig realised such football would not do the job in round 11 last year when Geelong squeaked past a well-drilled, but limited Adelaide and won by seven points.

It was the win that took the aggressive Cats to the top of the AFL ladder, a position they held for the rest of the season, culminating in the premiership.

Following the game Craig conceded the defensive, lock-down style he had drawn up for the season wasn't going to cut it with the best.

"(We need to) play much more consistent attacking footy, because defensive footy is not going to get you there, guaranteed," he said at the time.

Hamstrung by injuries, the Crows were only able to make a few cosmetic changes to their game for the rest of last year, but this pre-season Craig allied the biggest player turnover in the club's history - 13 new players joined the club - with a change in attitude.

Attack was in, and for the majority of 2008 it has stayed there, lifting the fifth-placed Crows to a better ladder position than almost anyone predicted.

However the Crows have reverted to the less ambitious style in their past two matches against Hawthorn and Brisbane - both resulted in defeats - and Craig has spent much of the mid-season break trying to switch back to the free-spirited play.

It says much about the chaotic nature of AFL football that the league's most regimented team is not in control of its own style.

"We were unhappy with our last quarter-and-a-half of football against the Brisbane Lions, where we fell into a style of football that was never going to win and it's not what our supporters want to watch and be associated with," Craig told Adelaide radio station 5AA.

"It's not what we try to train, so we need to get out of that pretty quickly, because it won't be good enough to get into the finals."

"The criticisms in 2007 were warranted as far as our capacity to score - defensively we were still very good, but in term of our capacity to score it was poor compared to 2005 and 2006.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP