In the previous three years, while playing for WAFL club Claremont, the rangy sharp-shooter had notched tallies of 127, 115 and 128 goals, helping the Tigers to a hat-trick of finals appearances, which began with a premiership in 1981.
A debut to rival Diesel's: Michael Barlow, round one, 2010
But the VFL was considered to be a fairly hefty step up in standard, so Ralph knew he would have to prove himself all over again.
As it turned out, he wasted absolutely no time doing just that.
In Ralph's first game for the Blues, the then-25-year-old slotted an extraordinary nine goals in his new club's 137-point hammering of North Melbourne at VFL Park.
"To kick four or five, I would've been very happy," Ralph told AFL.com.au from his office in Perth. "But to get as many as I did was a great bonus."
Ralph's performance caught the eye of sports reporter Mike Coward, who was covering the match for The Age newspaper.
"It is always enthralling to watch a specialist goal-kicker at work," Coward wrote. "Warren Ralph, who had an enviable reputation in Perth, made a memorable beginning to his VFL career by kicking nine goals and handing out three – two to his captain, Wayne Johnson.
"Not only did Ralph lead fast and hard and kick the drop punt as every manual says it should be kicked, but he showed the capacity to mark strongly when out of position and an encouraging willingness to recover any ball that escaped his grasp."
In all, Ralph had 11 scoring shots. Three decades on from that great day, he remembers two key things going in his favour: the size of the ground, which meant he had plenty of space to lead into, and the star-studded Carlton midfield.
"Waverley was the sort of ground that suited me, because of the way I played," he said. "It was a similar size to most of the grounds over here. You look at Subiaco and Waverley – I don't think the dimensions are much different.
"All the grounds over here are big, compared to the grounds we went to in Victoria in those days – places like Princes Park (where Carlton and Hawthorn were co-tenants), Windy Hill (Essendon) and the Junction Oval (Fitzroy).
"And in all fairness, Carlton had a pretty good midfield delivering the ball. Along with Johnston, there was Ken Sheldon, Rod Ashman, David Glascott. The list just goes on. It was pretty handy to have those sorts of guys in front of you."
If a player kicks nine goals on debut in the opening round this season season, the footy world will go into meltdown.
Yet Ralph's effort back in 1984 generated only a ripple of interest (Mark Jackson's effort in kicking nine goals in his first game for Geelong garnered more coverage), and the man himself wasn't even that excited about his achievement.
"It was a good feeling," Ralph said. "But I wasn’t doing handstands and cartwheels. It was a good game of footy, I played well (and) we won. That was it. And it wasn't the first time I'd kicked nine.
"Had it been my first ever game of senior footy, that would have made a huge difference. Yeah, it was my first VFL game and it was pretty good. Don't get me wrong. But it wasn't an over-the-top feeling."
At the end of his match report, Coward noted: "It would be unrealistic to expect Carlton to maintain such a level of performance."
That proved to be true. The Blues finished third on the ladder, behind eventual grand finalists Essendon and Hawthorn, but exited the finals after two straight losses.
Known to his teammates as 'Gonzo', Ralph endured a similarly up and down year. He backed up his brilliant effort against North Melbourne by kicking another six goals against Fitzroy at the Junction Oval in round two.
In round five, in a blockbuster Anzac Day match against the hated enemy Collingwood, he had had a chance to draw the game when he was awarded a free kick, 20 metres from goal, just seconds before the final siren.
Reporting for The Age, Trevor Grant described what happened next: "He stepped nicely into the kick in the wet conditions but misjudged the line by about half a metre, to allow a Collingwood win by five points. And the Magpie fans in the huge crowd of 68,082 went wild."
Ralph later dislocated his shoulder, and the injury took its toll on both his fitness and form. Still, after drifting in and out of the team late in the home and away season, he was recalled for Carlton's qualifying against Hawthorn at VFL Park.
In a tremendous contest, Ralph won over Blues fans once more by kicking eight of his team's 13 goals in a 30-point loss. Another three majors the following week against Collingwood took his season tally to 55, enough to win the club's goalkicking award.
That proved to be the only year in which Ralph was able to make a big impact at Carlton. A knee injury ruined his 1985 season, and then he fell out with new coach Robert Walls in 1986, finishing his VFL career playing in a reserves premiership.
Ralph headed back to Perth in 1987 and played mostly for Claremont during the latter stages of his career.
However, he did spent one year with Glenelg in the SANFL. And while in South Australia he achieved a degree of off-field fame by winning more than $800,000 in a lottery.
Now 55, Ralph is an operations manager at Perth-based industrial services company Contraflow, with responsibility for around 150 staff.
No longer involved in footy, he's still in touch with a few of his Carlton teammates – blokes like his old golf partner Wayne Harmes, and others including Alex Marcou and Mark Maclure.
"(With) Carlton, it's in your blood once you go there," he said. "I'm still a Carlton supporter and I've managed to brainwash my kids into being Carlton people."
Ralph might have played only 21 games for the Blues, but thanks to his nine goals on debut some 30 years ago, he retains a special place in the club's and the game's history.
Twitter: @AFL_AdamMcNicol
