As hard as it must be for the footy fans in north-west Victoria to remember, there was a time when Kerang were serial underperformers in the Central Murray league.
"In the early 2000s we finished on the bottom of the ladder nearly every year, winning two or three games," recalled long-time Kerang player and current co-coach Troy Coates.
How times have changed. Kerang's senior team has now played in 13 successive finals series.
Not only that, it has made the past eight grand finals, winning five of them, including the past four.
"We're pretty proud of what we've done," said club president Scott Clingan.
Kerang's remarkable turnaround can be traced back to the ambitious recruiting campaign that the club launched in the lead-up to the 2003 season.
The Blues secured the services of a number of players from Darwin, including Alwyn Davey, who would later play 100 AFL games for Essendon.
"We had a few young blokes coming through who were showing a bit of potential, but they just needed a bit of experience and class around them," Clingan said.
"We bit the bullet and spent a few dollars and the recruits set a standard for our playing group as a whole."
A much-needed finals appearance ensued in '03, then Kerang broke through by defeating Tooleybuc-Manangatang in the 2004 grand final.
The club has grown progressively stronger ever since.
"We did have some hard times along the way, though," Coates said. "We lost grand finals in '06, '08 and '09, but we stuck together as a group."
It would be easy to put the Blues' strength down to the demographic advantage the club has over many of its rivals.
Kerang has 4000 people, whereas a number of its Central Murray league rivals, such as Lake Boga, Woorinen and the Mallee Eagles, are based in towns with populations well below 1000.
Yet Clingan is adamant that putting his club's success down to having more people on its doorstep is highly simplistic.
Indeed, he points to the fact that three other clubs (Wandella, Macorna and Murrabit, whio play in the Golden Rivers league) also draw a large percentage of their players from the Kerang community.
"Even for us, it can be pretty hard with numbers," Clingan said.
Clingan believes it is a combination of professionalism and loyalty that have made his club one of the strongest in regional Victoria.
"Our players are very dedicated," he said. "They put in a lot of extra work, and they're a very close bunch of blokes.
"Most of our players are locals and most of the ones who aren't locals have probably been at the club for five or six years. So they're a very tight-knit group. That's probably the secret."
Last season, Kerang's senior side lost just two home-and-away games, then thrashed the Mallee Eagles in the second semi-final.
They ended up meeting Koondrook-Barham in the grand final at the Swan Hill Recreation Reserve.
The Blues led by just 15 points at three-quarter-time, but they piled on five unanswered goals in the final term and claimed yet another piece of silverware.
Former Carlton player Luke Livingston, who grew up in Kerang, was among the match-winners, kicking six goals.
"There were only three players in our team who didn't go to high school in Kerang," Clingan said proudly.
Kerang lost one of its highest-profile stars – former Adelaide, Hawthorn and North Melbourne midfielder Lance Picioane – over the summer.
But to the chagrin of their Central Murray league rivals, the Blues were not only able to hold onto the rest of their premiership players but also add new talent to their list.
That came in the form of local lads Brandon Hayes and Mark Lloyd, who have returned to the Blues after stints in the VFL and Bendigo league respectively.
As a result, Kerang have hit the ground running again this season.
Coates, who like his co-coach Travis Matheson is a Bendigo-based schoolteacher, bagged five goals when the Blues thrashed Koondrook-Barham in round one.
The Blues continued on their merry way last weekend, defeating Tooleybuc-Manangatang by 66 points.
That margin would have been far greater had Kerang not wasted many scoring opportunities (the final score was 19.20 to 11.2).
"I honestly believe that this year's side, when everyone's on the park, will be the best side that I've played in at Kerang," Coates said.
Given all that, it would take a brave pundit to tip against Kerang, which hosted the Mallee Eagles on Saturday, making it five flags on the trot in a few months' time.
"Winning premierships is what you play footy for," Clingan said. "So our boys are still really keen. They're all keen as mustard and they love winning."
KERANG FNC
* Kerang has beaten Woorinen, Cohuna Kangas, Tooleybuc-Manangatang and Koondrook-Barham in the past four Central Murray league grand finals
* The last time Kerang failed to win the flag was in 2011, when it lost the decider to Swan Hill
By Adam McNicol