Adelaide coach Brenton Sanderson says his Crows have a fundamental fear which is cruelling their AFL season.
Sanderson says his players, who confront a red-hot Gold Coast on Sunday, are scared of making mistakes - and that fear is resulting in woeful kicking.
"We need to remove the fear of making a mistake," Sanderson said.
"Sometimes, that anxiety grows and grows to the point where when you get the balls in your hands, you're petrified that you're going to make a mistake."
The Crows are ranked second-worst in the competition for goalkicking accuracy.
And in the past month, their kicking efficiency rate is 60 per cent, meaning only three in five kicks find the target.
The basic skill blunders cost Adelaide last start when they fell to Carlton by five points.
"We kicked 1.11 from 40 metres out ... even if that was 2.10, we win the game," Sanderson said.
"We kicked 10.9 from the corridor: that is unacceptable.
"The fundamental of our sport is to kick the goals when they matter.
"We have spent a lot of time in front of the goals this week trying to replicate match conditions, match anxiety."
But Sanderson said his 10th-placed outfit remained upbeat ahead of the Adelaide Oval fixture against the Gary Ablett-propelled Suns.
"Two games now, we have lost by less than a kick (goal). If we win them, we're sitting fifth on the ladder," he said.
"But unfortunately, we have lost them and are sitting 10th, which makes every game critical for us.
"We have just got to keep backing in our program and our systems."
Sanderson said Gold Coast, on a five-game winning streak and sitting third on the ladder, presented a massive challenge.
"They're young. But what they are is they're hard, they're clean and they're fast.
"They play a really attractive style of footy that obviously wins matches.
"They are really explosive. We can't allow them to get into that style of play. We need to make sure that they get a hard-contested inside game."
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