Neil Craig is certain he’s a better coach now than when he was Adelaide’s AFL boss.

But he’s still uncertain whether he’s the right man to coach Melbourne from next season.

Craig met with the panel selecting Melbourne’s next coach on Wednesday but left the meeting without knowing if he wanted the job.

“There is a few things that need to happen for me to start with before I would be part of that,” Craig told reporters in Adelaide on Friday.

“And they may or may not unfold.

“They have got their criteria about what they’re looking for in terms of a senior coach … I have got certain criteria. If they match up, that is fine, you continue with the discussions. If they don’t match up, that is also fine.

“The appointment is too important for it not to be conducive to both parties.”

There was no timeframe to appoint the next coach but the clock was ticking, Craig said.

“The sooner the club can make that appointment, the better off it will be in terms of the enormous amount of planning and work to be done,” he said.

“You have still got staff in the football department that are uncertain. Some of the players are still uncontracted.

“No one likes uncertainty. And a lot of that won’t go away until a decision is made on the senior coach.

“It’s not a reason to rush it, but it’s an understanding that from now on, every day that goes by makes it more and more difficult for whoever the person is that comes into the job.”

Craig had no doubt he was a better coach now than when he coached Adelaide for seven seasons until leaving late in the 2011 season.

And he believed there was great hope for the Demons despite a woeful season which has returned only two wins.

“I’m confident that whoever takes over, that there is light at the end of the tunnel with the squad that they have got,” he said.

Craig was also supportive of a model where Melbourne hired a head coach and also his successor as a senior assistant.

“That is a good model … that makes sense if you can find the right people to do that,” he said.

“The guy who would be the mentoring type coach, the senior coach, would have to be pretty secure in his own skin to do that … you certainly wouldn’t want that coach to be forced into that.”