Adelaide were not soft against Port Adelaide but say they need to play harder.

Crows midfielder Richard Douglas skirted delicately around the "s" word on Tuesday as his teammates commenced training ahead of Sunday's match-up against the Western Bulldogs, who have their own problems after a loss to St Kilda.

"We were smashed at the stoppages and, in particular, the centre bounces, so we'll work on that and try and improve against the Bulldogs," Douglas said.

"It just shows what can happen if you're not hard at the footy. We lost one game of footy and we get a chance to bounce back this week."

Adelaide's loss to the Power showed up a few problems apart from a lack of physical presence at many of the contests, both for clearances and contested marks.

There was also the unusual sight of Ben Rutten struggling to keep pace with Warren Tredrea, something that occurred partly due to changes in how the Crows defend.

By pressing their zone further upfield in an effort to win back possession quickly, Adelaide have left their defence more vulnerable as there are fewer numbers back to help cut off leads and double-team key marking targets.

Rutten looked ill-suited to his greater one-on-one responsibilities, but Douglas denied there was need for the Crows to revert to what they had done in previous years.

"We won't be trying anything too different (this week)," he said.

"We'll stick to what we know because when we do it well, it works for us.

"We want to be in the top eight and we're not there yet, so we've got some work to do, but 3-3 isn't disastrous.

"Hopefully a win this week will put us back in the eight."

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