The 2011 premiership player, once rookie-listed by Richmond, suffered a knee injury in 2012 and didn't play for the club again until its round one win over Port Fairy three weeks ago.

"Once upon a time you just went out and played footy," he said.

"But now there's all these structures and positioning that has been brought in."

Some things stay the same though.

Nick Thompson, Sam Thompson, Sam Kelly and Tim Brown - all of whom Miller played alongside in South's 41-point grand final win over Warrnambool seven years ago - are still there.

"It's great to run around with them again," he said.

"And that experience was part of the decision to come back. I'm hoping to bring some leadership on the ground, particularly in certain moments of the game, because we're a reasonably young team.

Miller joined Matt Monk, Sam Stevens, Danny Finn, Jacob Rhodes and Jarrod Thompson as an assistant coach to Mat Battistello during the off-season.

But the 35-year-old has also booted two goals in his first two games, although he isn't getting carried away just yet.

"Two kicks in each game and two goals, so that's alright I guess," he joked.

"I'm just playing a role as a deep forward.

"I want to get through as many games as possible and, being a bit older, hopefully avoid getting injured.

"But as a team we obviously want to play finals.

"Everyone wants to win the premiership and that's what we're striving for. If you don't, then you're not playing footy for the right reasons."

South Warrnambool gets the chance to press its premiership credentials this week against Koroit.

"It's definitely a big game," Miller said.

"They've been the benchmark for a long time now, so we'll come out and hopefully show things we've been working on over summer.

"It's always a good chance to test yourself against the best in the competition."

"I think the team has learned a lot over the last couple of weeks. We haven't been winning convincingly but we've banked a few games and we'll just continue to develop."

South Warrnambool hosts Koroit at 4pm on Friday.

SOUTH WARRNAMBOOL v. KOROIT

South Warrnambool

B: C. Gallichan, N. Kol, H. Lee

HB: P. Anderson, T. Blackney-Noter, S. Thompson

C: H. Gurry, I. Thomas, J. Henderson

HF: B. Beks, S. Beks, J. Gallichan

F: T. Brown, C. Lee, L. Youl

R: S. Kelly, J. Blair, B. Miller

Int: E. Ajang, C. Bradshaw, F. Marris, M. Sandow, N. Thompson

Koroit

B: T. Martin, D. Mooney, A. Pulling

HB: S. Brady, T. White, F. Robb

C: J. Gleeson, L. Rhook, L. O'Sullivan

HF: T. McPherson, B. Dobson, J Gow

F: J. Whitehead, D. O'Connor,

R: J. Hausler, S. Dobson, B. Harrington

Int: C. Hinkley, C. Nagorcka, R. Raymond, D. Roache

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