Stand-in Adelaide coach Mark Bickley hopes Saturday night's 95-point AFL loss to West Coast won't harm his chances of earning the role fulltime next season.

Just 20 minutes after the 22.13 (145) to 7.8 (50) trouncing, Bickley confirmed he would apply for the top job, declaring his desire to lead the club back into finals contention over the coming years.

West Coast assistant Scott Burns is considered the front runner for the role, while Collingwood's Mark Neeld is also in the frame.

But Bickley, who led the Crows to three wins from six games after taking over from Neil Craig in July, hopes he has shown enough to earn the nod, saying it would be unfair if the insipid loss to West Coast hampered his prospects.

"I'm sure they would have been looking at a range of things, not just one game and one performance," Bickley said.

"It was obviously a long way off where we want to be.

"But I guess you have to be a little bit careful with some of the results in round 24.

"Are we saying that Geelong are a 15-goal better side than Collingwood? How do these anomalies happen?

"I think we need to be just a little bit careful of judging that just on one result."

Bickley, who notched 272 games for Adelaide during a glittering playing career, said he enjoyed his short stint as senior coach and felt the time was right for him to take on the role fulltime after three years as an assistant.

"I felt that there was a response (while I was stand-in coach) and I've had constant feedback with the players," Bickley said.

"I feel I have the breadth of experience both knowledge-wise and experience or skills-wise to be able to take the job on."

Bickley said his style would be noticeably different to that employed by Craig.

"I think it would be pointless if one coach goes and the next coach comes in and does everything exactly the same. To me that wouldn't make a lot of sense," Bickley said.

"And if you looked at the last five or six weeks, there has been some change in game style.

"What we haven't had the opportunity to do is to go into any real detail in terms of significantly changing structures and game plans that need a lot of time and energy to put together.

"So we've probably had a little taste of what some of the changes might be, but at the same time there's a lot more detail and work that needs to go in behind that."

Adelaide, who were ruthlessly taken apart by West Coast in almost all facets of the game, finished their 2011 campaign with a club worst 7-15 record.

Although Bickley admitted there was no "silver bullet" to spark a quick fix, he said there was plenty of upside to the young list after last year's cleanout.

"I don't think it needs a major rebuild at all," he said.

"I think we've got the second most players aged 20-24 in the AFL.

"So in terms of a launching pad, we're in a really good position to be able to launch and improve really quickly."

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