ST Arnaud has completed the journey under coach James McNamee from rock bottom to the North Central Football League’s summit with its thrilling grand final win on Saturday.

McNamee took over as St Arnaud coach at the end of 2011 – a season in which the Saints had gone winless with an average losing margin of 95 points.

But the rise under McNamee was dramatic – a grand final loss to Wedderburn by one point in 2012, back-to-back preliminary final defeats in 2013 and 2014, before breaking through for Saturday’s flag with the hard-fought 13.8 (86) to 11.12 (78) win over Charlton in front of a crowd at Wedderburn that paid an NCFL grand final record $39,445.

“It has been four years of hard work to get here, so it’s a fantastic result,” said McNamee, who won’t continue as St Arnaud coach next year.

“The boys showed character all day and I couldn’t be happier with the 21 guys who had a crack for 100 minutes.”

St Arnaud had fallen 14 points behind at the 21-minute mark of the second term, but the Saints kicked the last goal of the quarter through McNamee when he converted a set-shot, before they then slammed on the first five of the third through Nick Coghlan (two), Andrew Jesse, Nathan Coghlan and Ben Batters to assume control.

The Saints later led by as many as 27 points early in the final quarter, before the Navies kicked five goals in 10 minutes to steal the lead by four points and at that stage, looked the likely winners.

But the Saints responded with the last two goals through Gavin Vassallo and Nick Coghlan – who bagged five to win the Des Darcy Medal – to claim the flag.

“We knew it was going to be an arm-wrestle and that it would take 100 minutes,” McNamee said.

“We were ordinary in the first half and luckily, they didn’t put us away, but in that third quarter we knew at some stage we could get on top and when we did, we kept banging the goals on and it’s just great to get the job done.”

As well as dynamic forward Nick Coghlan winning the Des Darcy Medal, dominant ruckman Luke Wells was awarded the AFL Victoria Country Medal.

Another of the standouts for the Saints was the pacy Justin Cooper, who provided plenty of spark, particularly in the second half.

Utility McNamee, wingman Harley Durward and joint-captain Andrew Jesse across half-forward were also in the Saints’ best.

Before Saturday, St Arnaud was enduring the NCFL’s longest premiership drought going back to 1999.

With Saturday’s victory, it means all seven NCFL clubs have now won senior flags since the turn of the millennium in 2000.

Premiership team: James McNamee (coach), Ben Batters (capt), Sam Dyke (capt), Andrew Jesse (capt), Nick Baldwin, Caleb Bloomer, Nick Coghlan, Nathan Coghlan, Justin Cooper, Lachlan Cunningham, Robert Elliott, Harley Durward, Matthew Goode, Thomson Goode, Kirk Looby, Ambrose McIntyre, Daniel Needs, Jacob Tillig, Adam Tipungwuti, Gavin Vassallo, Luke Wells.