The past decade has been a roller-coaster ride for the Wakool Football-Netball Club, which is based in a town of just 200 people in southern New South Wales.
The Hawks battled their way through the early 2000s, a period when their senior footy team won just a handful of games.
But they soared up the ladder in the 2006 thanks to the heroics of star recruit Shane Harvey, brother of North Melbourne champion Brent Harvey.
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Wakool won the '06 premiership, then made the finals again in '07, before Harvey's departure precipitated an almighty fall from grace.
The Hawks collapsed to the point where they didn't win a game in 2008.
Five years later, another recruiting campaign was launched. It was so successful that Wakool won the 2013 flag.
But, as in the past, the success didn't last. Last season, the Hawks' senior side won just four games.
This time, however, the club faces a monumental task to the climb back to the top of the heap.
So thin did its playing ranks become over the summer, Wakool was placed into recess in January and its chances of returning to the field appear slim.
"It's very sad," Wakool vice-president Anne Hamilton said. "In a little town like ours it's a pretty long, cold old winter without footy and netball."
Wakool has been a member of the Golden Rivers league (previously known as the Kerang and District league) since 1958.
The Hawks struggled during their early years of the competition, before breaking through to win three senior premierships in five seasons between 1976 and 1980.
They returned to the top of the tree by winning back-to-back flags in 1989 and '90, then endured a barren run before the arrival of Harvey and a number of other star recruits in the mid-2000s.
The 2006 and 2013 premierships gave the locals plenty to cheer about, and the club hit the headlines again in 2014 when it secured the services of former Melbourne player Paul Wheatley.
But the club's inability to regularly field an under-17 team, and the general lack of youth in the town, was a telltale sign that its long-term future was shaky.
"The primary school is down to 11 kids," Hamilton said. "Trying to keep the school open is a real worry for us. It would be very sad if the school and the footy club both went."
Last year, AFL Victoria's north-west review recommended that the Hawks merge with nearby Central Murray league club Koondrook-Barham.
The idea wasn't received particularly well in Wakool.
"It will never happen," Hamilton said. "There is no point. We would lose all our identity.
"If we had to merge with someone, and this hasn't been talked about by our committee, we would rather merge with Moulamein.
"They are part of our league and I think we would be more equal partners with them."
Such a merger might eventually become inevitable.
Until then, however, Hamilton and her fellow committee members are focusing their energy on getting Wakool back on the park in its own right.
"For this year we're having a social night down at the footy sheds every Wednesday," Hamilton said. "We'll have Auskick for the kids and netball for the little girls.
"We're putting meals on and ensuring the club stays alive in everyone's minds.
"As soon as you don't use your facilities in a little place like Wakool they just go to rack and ruin.
"We're also still paying our affiliation fees to the league, and we recently donated our share of the money needed to pay for the interleague jumpers.
"Money's not a problem. Financially, we are in a very strong position.
"We just held our fishing classic, which was a bit down due to the blue-green algae, but still made us around $40,000.
"We have our sheep races every year on the weekend of the Melbourne Cup, and we usually raise around $30,000 from our goods and services auction.
"So it's purely the lack of people being around that has put us in this position."
Despite the amount of money Wakool has in the bank, restoring the club to its former glory shapes as an enormous task.
Having seen their players drift off to a multitude of clubs across the state, the Hawks will need to bring them back, and recruit numerous others, in the space of one off-season.
And they will need to stay within the points cap assigned to the club under the new rules that have been rolled out by AFL Victoria Country.
Yet Hamilton is staying positive.
"We've got some good young people on our committee who are really keen," she said.
"If anyone wants a game of footy next year, come to Wakool. You won't regret it."
WAKOOL FNC
* The Wakool footy club has won seven senior premierships in the Golden Rivers league (1976, 1978, 1980, 1989-90, 2006, 2013)
* Ultima won last year's Golden Rivers league senior footy flag.
By Adam McNicol