South Australia captain Michael Klinger believes the Redbacks are a 'work in progress' following Sunday's 186-run Sheffield Shield loss to Victoria at Adelaide Oval.
The Redbacks barely had a sniff from the outset when Bushrangers opener Rob Quiney plundered an opening day century (114) as Victoria posted a first innings total of 437.
Quiney belted another century in the second innings to set the Redbacks a mammoth 445 target victory.
Lethal spells of bowling from Bushrangers orthodox bowler Jon Holland who claimed seven wickets for the match ensured the Redbacks fell well short on 224 and 228 in reply.
The result left the Redbacks winless since November 2010 in Shield and on the verge of a third consecutive wooden spoon.
Despite differing fortunes in the Ryobi One-Day Cup where the SA side is excelling in second place, Klinger admitted the Redbacks are still adjusting to the rigors of the long-version of the game
"It's been an up and down season ... four-day cricket we are very much a work in progress," Klinger conceded.
"The selectors are picking young blokes so sometimes we have to expect these sort of results, however there is no excuse for it."
"The guys in the team, and I'm one of them, should be performing as well as can be every time ... we still have some senior guys in the team who need to be putting their hand up a little bit more."
The Redbacks were left to rue a number of chances that would have slashed the monumental deficit the Bushrangers enforced.
A series of dropped catches and poor fielding cost the hosts a way back into the tie.
Bundled efforts allowed Quiney, young top-order batsman Peter Handscomb (113), who combined for a 225-run partnership with the former, and tailender Jayde Herrick (62 not out) to inflict further damage.
"Our first innings bowling and batting performance was disappointing," Klinger said reflecting on the innings.
"Day one set up the rest of the game ... we really should have bowled them out for 250 if we were to have taken the majority of our chances."
"We take those chances and we get the middle to low-order batters batting with the new ball and the whole game could have been set up different."
"That's not to say though that the rest of our cricket throughout the game could have certainly been better as well."