As Cyril Rioli hurtled towards his West Coast opponent Mark Hutchings with the speed and menace of a jungle cat on Saturday, Hawthorn head fitness coach Andrew Russell allowed himself a beaming smile at just how much had changed in a year.

Such a chase was strictly forbidden in the 2014 decider, when Rioli was included after  11 weeks on the sidelines with another hamstring injury.

Even though the dashing forward-midfielder got through that match without incident, after adhering to orders to curb his running in a bid to reduce the chances of injury recurrence, once that match was done Russell resolved to undertake the most drastically individualised fitness program he and his fellow fitness staff had ever attempted for a player. The aim was to remedy what he thought was the underlying reason for Rioli regularly succumbing to soft-tissue injuries: insufficient strength in his glutes, hamstrings and calves.

"We said 'We're going to strip Cyril back and start again'. At the start, 'Clarko' [coach Alastair Clarkson] and all the coaches were like 'He's played in a grand final so why do you need to do that?' But it wasn't about him getting through and getting to the line. It was about making him resilient enough to handle ... the rigours of a whole AFL season," Russell explained.

"From January through to round one he was in and out of the skills program ... we'd be pulling him out of those sessions and doing special work with him.

"It was a big project. It was well planned from the start. Everyone knew exactly what we were doing and why we were doing it."

The 23 matches Rioli played this year was near his career-best tally of 25, when he played every match in his debut season in 2008. The two matches he missed were not due to injury.

Besides that continuity of matches, one unexpected benefit of the focus on improving Rioli's core strength has been the resulting boost to his spring, and his willingness to fly for more marks.

Even though Rioli entered this weekend's grand final with a near-perfect physical preparation – "There couldn't be more extremes about his preparation going in from one grand final to the other," Russell explained – the Hawks were determined to not allow complacency to in any way affect Rioli because of that.

They therefore strived to "tap into that same mental preparation as he had last year", when his excellent mental preparation helped him overcome his scant physical preparation for the 2014 grand final against Sydney.

"Myself and our sports psychologist, Anthony Klarica, spoke to him early in the week about [our wish for him] to get excited, that he could do something special if he could get himself into that same motivational state as last year, and don't take it for granted that it will just happen ... because you've played well during the year," Russell said.

When Rioli delivered on that request to replicate his motivational approach from last year it led to a performance against West Coast even better than they had hoped.

"We had a lot of good contributors, but Cyril really set us alight in the first part of the game," Clarkson told the club's premiership celebration  at Glenferrie Oval on Sunday.

As Rioli recovered from a rare mistake, failing to win a one-on-two contest, on Saturday to desperately and successfully pursue Mark Hutchings as he sought to run the ball out of defence it signalled to Russell  any doubts Rioli had over his body had been shed.

"It was an enjoyable day to see Cyril, but I've enjoyed watching him all year. I suppose it was just icing on the cake for him to be able to do that on the biggest stage, on the biggest day of the year. A lot of people at the footy club really enjoyed it, none more than the players because the players know how much work Cyril has put in and the sacrifices he's made to get to that level."

Russell said the awarding of the Norm Smith Medal to Rioli was "very special" for the large contingent of fitness and medical staff who had contributed to the fitness program. But he stressed "the player is the absolute focus [of credit]".

Once the Hawks' premiership celebrations, and the subsequent holidays for players, are complete Russell will again put Rioli through a  strength-focused program – in the hope of the 26-year-old rising to even greater heights in 2016.

"He's starting at a much better level than he was this time last year, so we don't have to strip it back as far. But we're going to use the same philosophy," he said.

"Hopefully in his second year we can make him even better ... that he's got confidence it worked this year so he'll have even more confidence in it next year."

Russell said he does not expect Rioli's success this season in avoiding injury will prompt coaches to consider using him more in the midfield. "They may or may not do that, but we're not changing his conditioning with a focus on doing that," Russell said. "We feel like we've worked out the best way to play him right now, how much in the midfield and how much forward. We'll probably stick to that I imagine, but time will tell."