While the Western Australian Football League is generally regarded as one of, if not the strongest local competition in the country, Stratton says the change is obvious.
“[With] the number of hours you spend at the club, you can see the game planning definitely lifts,” Stratton told hawthornfc.com.au.
“You train in the morning, which I think is better, and do your other stuff in the arvo ... With the WAFL, you only train for two hours in the afternoon and then you go home and it’s only three days a week.
"It’s a lot more commitment and you’re thinking of footy 100 per cent of the time.”
Unsurprisingly, Stratton also has felt the difference in match tempo.
“I’ve definitely noticed it coming into the first two NAB Cup games. There’s a lot of game- related running during the pre-season", he said.
"As a group we had a pretty good pre-season and it was the best pre-season I’ve ever had.”
While Stratton is finding his feet on the field, the Hawks wasted no time getting him involved with the club as soon as he was drafted in November.
Stratton packed his belongings and immediately boarded a flight to Melbourne where he was greeted at Tullamarine airport by new teammate Campbell Brown.
“Campbell is a pretty good bloke to have my first night in Melbourne with. He’s a funny bloke and his girlfriend cooked us a nice meal,” he said.
“He picked me up from the airport on my first night and I stayed at his place for a couple of nights. I came with him to my first training session.”
Stratton, who turned 21 just Monday, already knew some of the faces at his new club thanks to the eight teammates who had come through the WAFL pathway.
“I sort of knew of Mossy (Garry Moss) and Jarryd Morton. I had mates back home who are good mates with those blokes. Also I played against Jarrod Kayler-Thomson in the WAFL.
"It made it easier that I had a link with those guys. It was easy to become mates with them and build relationships as fellow WA boys.”
As a mature-bodied defender, Stratton will be aiming to grab any opportunities that come his way but is well aware that Josh Gibson’s arrival - plus the Hawks' abundance of running half-backs - means competition for spots will be intense.
“I think my goals are to play consistent footy wherever I play. If it’s mostly VFL then I just want to be consistent there and get used to the AFL lifestyle and stay injury-free,” he said.
“If I can do that for a year then the other things will come maybe later in the year or next year.
"If an AFL senior game comes along then that’d be awesome.”
