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A statistic about St. Kilda illustrates the task Jeans' had before him: before reaching the grand final in 1965, St. Kilda hadn't played in the big one since 1913. The Saints duly lost to Essendon, but avenged their defeat the following year, in what many believe is the greatest grand final ever, with Barry Breen getting St. Kilda over the line with a point kicked only seconds before the siren.

Jeans acerbically tells, "My greatest achievement was getting Barry Breen to 300 games...". And not many of us remember any more than that one game, that featured Breen's wobbly kick for a point .

I press him on Killigrew. "He was the first one to teach me the value of handball. Handball was sort of used as a defensive measure; you weren't allowed to use it in the backline... Killigrew showed me the value of using it as an offensive weapon.

"Whatever your coaching philosophy is, my philosophy is the side that wins in most positions - applicable to today's football - the side that wins in most positions and makes the least number of mistakes usually wins. Nobody has the perfect mix - even Sheedy lost one this year.

"My philosophy was if I'm competing against you and I might be lacking a bit of ability, once the ball comes to ground, if I can get my hands on the ball, my team mate comes in and bumps you off, or shepherds or takes the handball, I've won the contest. My movement is dictated by the movement of the ball, and this bloke backing up, well he's got to sum up that I'm gonna get it and he takes the handball. And we've won the contest."

To best illustrate, Jeans gives me an impromptu coaching lesson, up on his feet in a flash, slightly crouched to maintain eye level. Yoda willing the Force.

"You must understand the difference between the basics and the tactics. The basics are the general guidelines that are going to be adhered to. On most occasions, and very seldom alter. You're caught behind in the backline. What are ya gonna do? Punch the ball away: it's a fundamental. Punch it toward the boundary line. Punch it through the goals. Fundamental instruction. How to hold the ball to kick it. Fundamentals. How to mark it. Fundamentals. Now they're guidelines that gotta be adhered to. And now, you're talking about winning possession of the ball. Tactics are different. Tactics are exploiting the strengths and weakness of the opposition; negating them from doing it to us. And you sit down each week, you look at the side and then say, what's their strength, what's their weaknesses, and how are we going to exploit these. And stop them exploiting us. So that varies every week. The fundamentals do not."