WEST Coast coach John Worsfold has described assistant coaches Scott Burns and Peter Sumich as "talented football people" but stopped short of endorsing them for the vacant Adelaide coaching position.

Burns and Sumich are among the prospective candidates as the Crows search for Neil Craig's long-term replacement, with caretaker coach and dual Adelaide premiership captain Mark Bickley the current frontrunner.

Worsfold, who labeled Craig a "very astute coach, a gentleman and a lovely guy", said it was not his role to declare his highly-rated assistants ready for a senior job.

But he said both Burns and Sumich were valuable members of the coaching group that has guided West Coast from last place in 2010 into top-four calculations this season.

"We obviously rate those guys really highly," Worsfold said from Patersons Stadium on Wednesday. "Peter Sumich has been well and truly in contention for a couple of jobs over his time here, and he certainly hasn't gone backwards.

"He's gone from working with a talented midfield to working with the forward line and building that up and he's done a great job there.

"I would suggest both guys are talented football people [but] it's not really my decision to say they're ready."

Respected senior assistant Sumich, who is in his 10th season at West Coast, unsuccessfully applied for vacant positions at Essendon and Melbourne in 2007, narrowly missing the Bombers' post won by Matthew Knights.

He also applied for the Richmond position in 2009 won by Damian Hardwick.
 
Worsfold confirmed that Sumich still had senior coaching ambitions, but added that he wouldn't necessarily be drawn to the Adelaide position.

"'Summa' will talk for himself, but he doesn't just apply for every job going around, or put his hand up," Worsfold said. "He's got various criteria he's working to as well."

Burns has been an assistant at West Coast for the past three seasons, developing the Eagles' young on-ballers and taking charge of the club's midfield strategies.

Worsfold said the 36-year-old, who played 264 games for the Magpies and captained the club in his final season, had a great knowledge of the game.

"Strategically he's very in tune with where the game is at currently and not only working with game strategies, but using the strengths of our individual players," the coach said.

"He's been great in a development role and he's very resilient. He's worked with a very young midfield group over the last two or three years and he's starting to see the results of building them up to where they are now."

West Coast travels to Melbourne this week to face the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium on Saturday, with midfielder Daniel Kerr pushing for a recall after two weeks on the sidelines.

Kerr has experienced hip and glute soreness in recent weeks, but Worsfold said the 28-year-old had lifted his workload this week in an effort to be declared fit.

"Last week my feeling was they weren't going to declare him fit. He was less than 50-50," Worsfold said.

"This week I would say he's getting close to being fully fit and then it's a matter for the medical staff to say has he ticked all the boxes, to say there's no risk taking him into the game.

"We don't want to have any setbacks with him. That will be the medical call.

"We're trying to get him where he's resilient and ready to play out the season."

Nathan Schmook covers West Coast news for afl.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_NSchmook