Collingwood's Mick Malthouse has backed his assistant Mark Neeld for the vacant Adelaide Crows senior coaching position.

Neeld joins a group of assistants from a number of clubs who are in line to replace Neil Craig, who stepped down this week.

Carlton coach Brett Ratten has also supported his senior assistants Alan Richardson and Gavin Brown as candidates for the job.

Malthouse said Neeld was more prepared than former Magpies assistant Brad Scott, who went on to coach North Melbourne.

"In many respects, he's probably further advanced because he's coached his own team and even though it was a local team, he's won four premierships in a row, which is pretty hard to do," Malthouse said on Thursday.

"He's coached an under-18s side, and he's brought to them discipline, good structure and good methodology."

Neeld steered Ocean Grove to four straight premierships in the Bellarine football league. He also coached Old Geelong in the Victorian Amateurs and was head of health and physical education at Geelong College.

Neeld had a serious health scare during the finals last year which forced him to have an operation after Collingwood's premiership win to remove blood vessels that had travelled from his ear to his brain.

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