AFTER its most humiliating defeat of the season, Adelaide must learn from the hurt before regrouping to take on archrivals Port Adelaide in the Showdown next week, according to Crows young gun Jared Petrenko.

The Crows fell to their heaviest defeat of the year, a 103 point loss to St Kilda on Friday. Their score of just 24 points was the lowest total in the 20 year history of the club and the crushing defeat is set to bring more attention on the coaching future of Neil Craig.

However, Petrenko was quick to defend his coach against coming criticism.

 ''Neil is not out there playing. I know that I take this performance very personally and Neil can only do so much," he said.

"I don't listen to the media personally, but it has been pretty tough.

''We just weren't on at all tonight, and that is unlike us. We need to just keep driving that belief that we can perform.''

Petrenko said the immediate message after the game was to feel the pain of the loss before regrouping for their next contest.

''First of all, we have to hurt tonight and tomorrow and then we have to get back up again for next week and there is no better game than the Showdown," he said.

"After serving something like that you just want to bounce back and play the footy that we know we can play. It is the perfect test for us, I guess, but we just want to get back to the way that we have played for the last two weeks and do it for four quarters.''

After a disappointing season, the Crows had beaten Sydney in the wet and were run over by Essendon late in the game in their previous two encounters.

''To serve up a performance like that after the way that we went about it in the last two weeks is pretty disappointing. It wasn't really a team effort tonight. The rest of the season, we just want to keep fighting and not serve up anything like that,'' Petrenko said.

Despite a 47 point gap at half-time, the Crows actually lead several areas of the game including the inside 50 count. But it wasn't reflected on the scoreboard and the Crows were being hurt by the Saints' effectiveness, as well as their own critical errors and turnovers.

''We saw the stats at half-time and we were pretty even all over the ground, I can't really put my finger on it, if I had to say one thing, it would probably be a lack of team work and not everyone  carrying the rope," he said.

Petrenko said there was no hint of the poor performance against the Saints in the build-up the game and added it was important the result did not attack the young group's confidence.

''It was always tough, you come to every came hoping to win and at least compete, it was tough out the ground. You just have to try and stay up and keep the motivation going while on the ground. We are a young team, we are trying to build something great, we just have to keep pressing on that,'' he said.