MARK Thompson believes his young Geelong team can turn yesterday's drought-breaking premiership into an era of success, having released themselves from their club's recent history of grand final failure.

The Geelong coach revealed he had considered himself sacked when the club launched a post-season review of his football department last year, but said that having set out on a "mission" to return exciting and attacking football to the AFL, his players could now play with even more abandon.

Geelong's 119-point demolition of Port Adelaide was the biggest winning margin ever in a grand final, delivering the club's first premiership since 1963 after failures in 1989, 1992, 1994 and 1995 that Thompson said he and his team had shaken.

Steve Johnson won the Norm Smith Medal with a four-goal game nine months after being banished by senior teammates to train with the VFL squad for the first six weeks of the season, while Joel Selwood became the first Rising Star to win a premiership medallion in the same year.

"We should," said Thompson, asked last night whether his current squad, which rose from a 10th-place finish in 2006, could enjoy several more years at the top.

"Darren Milburn, I think, is our oldest player, and he's still young — he's just turned 30," Thompson said. "We've got so many good players who are 23, 24 and 25, and we've got Tom Hawkins and Travis Varcoe and Nathan Djerrkura — some really exciting young talent coming through.

"I think now that the club has the pressure and the monkey off their back, we can forge ahead. Because it's been such a long time since we've won, there was this pressure to win. I think the players felt it, and I think everyone who worked at the club felt it. I'm glad it's gone. We can go ahead, go ahead with our business now."

Thompson, who has declined to negotiate a new contract with the Cats as this season has unfolded, said he would talk to president Frank Costa "soon", and that "it would be a formality, I'd say", that he would remain in charge of the club next year.

"I haven't even thought about it. I think our players and our club have been on an absolute mission this year, and we've let nothing stand in our way," Thompson said. "Everything was focused towards winning a premiership, and we've just won it half an hour ago.

"It's a hard position to be in all the time (in Geelong). You don't need to do much wrong before you get kicked. It's been a massive project to win a premiership in Geelong, make no mistake."

Thompson said it had been a "line ball" decision to replace young ruckman Mark Blake with Steven King in yesterday's side, but said the decision had been vindicated by King's strong performance.

"I think you'd all have to agree we probably made the right choice," he said, "but can I just say that Mark Blake has had a fantastic year. We think he's going to be a great player in the future … but today it was just the experience of Steven and his strength.

"We needed him in the side and as hard as it is to make those decisions — and to tell his mother and his sister and his father — sometimes you just have to do it. We apologise, and we're sorry he couldn't play, but I think we did make the right decision."

Johnson, who was offered to both Collingwood and Essendon in trade talks last October, said he had never considered quitting either the Cats or AFL football when the club's leadership group told him he could not train or play with them until he had straightened up his off-field act.

"I was nearly out the door and things have turned around," he said. "I wasn't thinking this far ahead, but it's just a fairytale."

Thompson was keen to credit his assistants — Steve Hocking, Ken Hinkley, Brenton Sanderson, Brendan McCartney and Leigh Tudor — for their support.

"It feels great to be successful in one year. Not as good as a player. As a player it's just enormous, I think as a coach the satisfaction I get is for the people who support the club," he said.

"The City of Geelong has been waiting a long time … We get criticised pretty easily and we just went about building a really strong club from the bottom up. You watch them play today and you can't help but think of how proud you are."