Jack Steele knew something had to change at St Kilda.
The Saints had gone from winning a final in 2020 to falling off the radar in 2021, Steele's first season as co-captain at the AFL club.
But three rounds into 2022, St Kilda are 2-1 and have shown glimpses of what they can do, notably with a 10-goal match-winning blitz against Richmond.
"It's just the work we put in," Steele told AAP.
"We probably were a bit complacent on the back of our 2020 campaign going into 2021 so we were a bit behind the eight ball.
"But we made sure that we worked pretty hard over the pre-season and made sure we nailed a few things and there's plenty of role clarity. We just had a really good hard look at ourselves and what the issues really were.
"So we're just starting to reap the rewards but it's a long season.
"We're 2-1, we're not out of the woods yet. We still need to focus on ourselves and play some good footy."
Crucial to that resurgence have been two magical bursts in as many games from key forward Max King.
The 21-year-old broke open the round-two win over Fremantle with a three-goal third quarter and exploded with a match-winning four goals in the final term against Richmond.
In Steele's eyes, it's reward for King's willingness to grind out otherwise difficult days.
"He can be the best key forward in the competition, there's no doubt about that," he said.
"He's still pretty young, pretty raw and still a lot of work there for him to do.
"But he's got real drive and wants to be the man."
With the likes of Zak Jones, Jack Billings and Hunter Clark unavailable, Steele has relished Jade Gresham returning to his best after an injury-plagued run that included back stress fractures and a ruptured achilles.
"We'd seen earlier in his career when he was injury-free that he was a very dangerous player and did make a lot of teams worry when he was around the ball," he said.
"He is one of those players that can, and we've seen it before, win the game off his own boot."
St Kilda take on Hawthorn, also sitting on two wins, on Sunday.
The Saints called upon debutant Marcus Windhager, while last week's substitute Ben Long is in the 22, with Jack Higgins out with concussion and Jack Hayes omitted.
Hawthorn regain Jarman Impey but lose Chad Wingard to a calf injury, while Finn Maginness was dropped.
