Matthew Nicks says he's under the most pressure of his Adelaide coaching tenure and concedes his club's finals hopes are in tatters.
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Nicks is appealing for Crows supporters to stick by the club after they slumped to another horror loss on Thursday night.
The coach said the eight-point home loss to Richmond, who entered the game with one win and on an eight-game losing stretch, leaves Adelaide likely to again miss the finals.
"From a finals point of view, it's going to be very, very tough for us, mathematically, to get in there," Nicks said post-match.
The Crows have just four wins and by the end of the round could be 14 premiership points adrift of eighth place in a season when they embraced expectation of breaking a seven-year finals drought.
Nicks had been due to fall off-contract at the end of the season but in March was given a two-year contract extension until the end of 2026.
Adelaide's chairman John Olsen on Wednesday said he had "no issue" with the extension despite the club's poor performances.
But Nicks admitted the loss to the Tigers would heap more pressure on him.
"We're all in," Nicks said.
"So my way of working through this is to dig in even harder and continue to work as hard as I do.
"I have mentioned it before, that I am actually in the job because I enjoy pressure. Right now it's at its highest.
"It doesn't mean I'm enjoying it as much as I was a number of weeks ago but I'll put my head down and go to work like we all will.
"As a club, that's what we need to do - find a way back."
Nicks, in his fifth season as coach and with 33 wins from 96 games, maintained his messages were still resonating with his players.
"We're still tight," he said.
"And working through what we want to do, what is pretty clear on a Monday when we look back on the game is what we need to be better at.
"Probably the most frustrating part about it all is we actually have an understanding of it - it's just the ability to now get back to where we know we can be.
"The connection is strong, as it has been right throughout the year."
Nicks urged an increasingly frustrated Crows fan-base to also stick tight.
"I completely understand how they feel," he said.
"And we sit in the same boat: we are frustrated, we're disappointed in what we're putting out there.
"And I ask them to stick by us. It's a tough time at the moment but stick by us."
Australian Associated Press
