Adelaide onballer Richard Douglas would rather swift redemption than two weeks of tackling practice.

But Douglas knows the tackle bags loom large for the Crows, who don’t play this weekend after a 35-point capitulation to Essendon last Friday night.

After the season-opening loss, coach Brenton Sanderson savaged Adelaide for laying 26 less tackles than the Bombers.

“We can tackle, we just didn’t do it well,” Douglas told reporters on Monday.

“The disappointing thing was that when we did miss tackles they resulted in some goals and at important times of the game.

“We’ll look at it this week on the track and probably get the gloves off a bit and do a bit of tackling work and get down and dirty.”

Douglas would much prefer playing this weekend “to get an opportunity to redeem ourselves”.

Instead, the Crows will focus on tackling and how to better protect key midfielder Patrick Dangerfield, who was curtailed by Essendon tagger Heath Hocking in round one.

“At times we think Patty is invincible, that he can beat anyone one on one,” Douglas said.

“But’s he’s going to need some help. If we lay a few blocks, Patty can get a free run, and when he has a free run he is hard to stop.”