Ricky Ponting admits Australia were completely outclassed in the second Test as England took a 1-nil lead in the Ashes after winning by an innings and 71 runs.
The captain conceded Australia squandered their chance to gain the upper hand in the series with a poor first innings performance.
Ponting acknowledged a fortnight's break before the third Test in Perth could not have come at a better time for the shattered Aussies.
"No doubt it's a bad loss for us, there's no hiding that fact," he said.
"Losing by an innings and 70 runs having won the toss on a good Adelaide wicket just about says it all. I think they out-batted us, they out-bowled us and they out-fielded us this entire game. I think England have played very well, there's no hiding that fact either," Ponting said.
"The week off now will probably do the boys a world of good just to get away for themselves and have a bit of a think about what they need to do as individual players and what we need to do as a team to work out way back into the series."
Ponting admitted nothing short of Australia's absolute best was needed to regain the Ashes.
"If you look at things now we're going to have to be at our absolute best if we're going to work our way back into the series," he said.
"There's nothing that we would have changed preparation wise, nothing we would have changed personnel wise - we've got everything the way we wanted it to be. Purely and simply we've been out played. It's pretty simple we've got to win two of the next three matches if we want to win the Ashes."
The skipper denied any member of the Australian squad failed to give 100 percent rather it was poor skills that let the Aussies down.
He highlighted Michael Clarke and Mike Hussey's 104-run partnership on day four as evidence of Australia's endeavour and fight.
"I'll never doubt that about any single player that plays for Australia," he said.
"I thought yesterday was a good example of that. We gave ourselves a bit of a chance, obviously losing that wicket last night sort of broke our back a bit. There's no lack of endeavour or fight in our guys, it's been our skills and maybe our thought processes a bit at times that have let us down."
Ponting conceded his own performance was well below par after a duck in the first innings and a disappointing nine from 19 deliveries in the second.
"Don't worry about winning the games, I've got to make some runs as well," he said.
"To make nine runs in two innings out there on that wicket in this game is nowhere near good enough for and my expectations of myself are a lot higher than that."
"There's a great challenge for me to score runs and a great challenge for me to captain the side well in Perth and give the guys the best chance to work our way back into the series.