Jeparit-Rainbow's unexpected flag in 2009 | Grand Final Showdowns

The first two came soon after Jeparit and Rainbow's amalgamation in November 1995 - winning the under-16 premiership in their inaugural season and claiming their only senior football premiership the following year in 1997.

Another junior premiership followed in 2002, but their most recent, and perhaps most unexpected success, was a 2009 reserves premiership.

In the grand final, on a stinking hot Mallee afternoon, the reserves side came back from five goals down to upset the previously undefeated Ouyen United by just one point.

Playing-coach Mick Henderson said a premiership was incredibly unexpected - particularly following a difficult start to the season.

"That was my first year of coaching, and I remember in round one having 12 players available and getting beaten by 200 points," Henderson said.

"It was a funny story. The president at the time sat me aside after my first game and said I needed to rethink the way I was coaching.

"Apparently in my four talks for the day, I said the F-word more than one hundred times."

Henderson said it wasn't a quick fix.

"I don't think we won a game for the first six weeks," he said. "We only started to get better later, when we got a few blokes back who finished cropping and that sort of stuff."

Premiership player and current Jeparit-Rainbow president Jason Hutson said the Storm started to build momentum in the back-half of the season.

"We were really struggling for numbers," he said.

"Then a few senior blokes got injured during the year, and ended up coming into the reserves later on.

"I started in the seniors that year, then hurt my ankle in my fourth game. I said, 'Just put me in the twos, because my body is buggered'.

"There were a couple of others in the same boat."

One of the key additions was experienced key forward Adam Gould, who went on to boot five goals on grand final day.

"I had retired, and just came back to play a couple of games," Gould said.

"I had my arm twisted a bit. They were really short. But it turned out to be well worth it."

Despite finding form late in the season, Hutson said the side were still heavy underdogs.

"At the start of the year, you wouldn't have given us the slightest chance," he said.

"We just scraped into the top four, and then made it into a preliminary final against Sea Lake-Nandaly Tigers.

"They were a good side that year, so we weren't overly confident."

Gould said some outlandish conditions may have helped bridge the gap between the two sides.

"We probably weren't as good as the other two sides by a long way," Gould said.

"But we happened to get Sea Lake-Nandaly Tigers on a day with about 50kmh winds and 45-degree heat.

"We managed to beat them, somehow."

The fairytale run continued on grand final day.

Jeparit-Rainbow would take on the undefeated Oyuen United, who also had a side in the junior and senior football grand finals. Henderson said nobody would have tipped his side.

"We went in as massive underdogs," he said. "When we played them early in the season, they beat us by 100 points both times I reckon.

"We went in sort of really expecting to be up against it."

Hutson said things were off to a bad start before the match had even begun.

"We had blokes turning up late right from the start. We had one bloke, Ash Cook ... he ended up at Hopetoun instead of Woomelang where we playing," Hutson said.

"He pretty much missed the warm-up and all the team photos at the start."

The delayed start didn't seem to phase Cook, as the midfielder was later named Jeparit-Rainbow's best.

"He was just a tough nut ... really tough at it," Hutson said. "

He had played a bit of seniors that year too."

Similar to Cook, Jeparit-Rainbow got off to a slow start in the match.

"We were a little bit overwhelmed - not many of us had played in a grand final before," Hutson said.

"We were about 27 points down at quarter time, and looking down the barrel."

Henderson said: "We started to peg them back. Then from memory we were about three goals down at three-quarter time.

"As the coach, I'm sure it was a very inspirational speech that got us over the line."

In reality, it was a swift passage of play from one end of the ground to the other that led to the winning score.

"We didn't get in front until probably the last minute and a half," Hutson said.

"Aaron Glen had it in the backline, he kicked it to me on the wing, I kicked it to Mick Preston who got absolutely flattened, and won a 50-metre penalty. He kicked it from the goal line to put us in front.

"In the last two minutes they hammered the goals. They kicked a point, and had a couple of others fall short.

"When the siren went, it was at their half forward line and we were one point up. It was a pretty special day."

Henderson said it was amazing to be involved.

"From where we came from at the start, getting beaten by 200 points, to where we finished up ... you couldn't write a better story," he said. "Especially for the club, it was massive. They had had very little success for quite a while."

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