The Adelaide Crows have won just a single match in five attempts away from the Adelaide Oval this year, and coach Matthew Nicks knows it needs to change.
The Crows fell to the Gold Coast Suns by 25 points in Darwin on Saturday evening, following their previous road losses by 45 against the Western Bulldogs a fortnight ago, and by 26 points to the Geelong Cats a fortnight before that.
Their only win on the road this year came against the Hawthorn Hawks in mid-April by just three points against the Hawthorn Hawks, and while Adelaide have won all but two games at home, their loss to the Suns will ensure they are outside of the top eight at the end of this weekend.
Nicks said post game that their road form was "front of mind."
"We have to be better [away from home]. We know that. It's something that is front of mind for us and was pre playing this game. We will go back and have another look at it, but we understand we have to better when playing away games," the Crows' coach said.
Against the Suns, the Crows had blasted out of the gates, only to be mowed down by a Gold Coast side who, according to Nicks, adjusted to the changeable conditions far quicker.
"It's a tough one to swallow at the moment. We had our chances. Obviously the start of the game was on our terms, but we were well beaten in the contest tonight," Nicks said.
"When conditions changed, became a little slipperier, the game changed and they adjusted far quicker than we did to those conditions. That put us on the back foot and momentum changed.
"In the end, I thought the effort to get ourselves back in the game, even got our noses in front in the second half after a really poor period, that was a positive, but that was about the only one tonight.
"We were well beaten in the areas that say if you don't win that contest you're in trouble."
Nicks said the Suns dominating the contest throughout the game was frustrating.
"That [the Suns dominating contested ball] was the most frustrating thing for the night," Nicks said.
"Credit to the Gold Coast - they dominated us in that area through periods of the game. Unfortunately tonight, we had too many players that didn't impact enough right across the board. We were inconsistent in the way we played tonight. They were consistent in the way they went about it after that first quarter, and we just took far too long to adjust to that."
The Crows, who have won six of twelve games, are still well in the hunt to feature during September, and host the West Coast Eagles next weekend before a bye preceeds games against the Collingwood Magpies, North Melbourne Kangaroos and Essendon Bombers, with the games against Collingwood and Essendon the next two chances for the side to reverse their away record.
