The Giants became premiers and champions by defeating a gallant Heywood 12.13 (85) to 10.9 (69) at Portland’s Hanlon Park.

The triumph came after they finished the regular season unbeaten with a percentage of 391.88 and defeated the Lions in the second semi-final.

Chris Lenehan, one of three Warrnambool-based players in the Giants’ side, won the AFL Victoria Country Medal for best afield.

“It’s been a great year. Obviously it’s a fantastic way to finish the year off, with a premiership,” Dartmoor coach Simon Jones said.

But Dartmoor didn’t have everything its own way in the grand final — far from it.

The Giants conceded the first goal of the decider when Lion John Bell marked on the goal line, but hit back with five of their own in nine minutes.

Century goalkicker Jason McCrae started the surge by collecting a loose ball in the goal square.

Brady Hicks grabbed the next with a 50-metre bomb on the run after leaving his man at half-back, one of the goals of the day.

Jayden Polaski got on the end of a Sam Bouwman pass for the third, while Aaron Jones capitalised on a poor kick out of defence for the fourth.

McCrae then turned provider by beating Leigh Malseed at ground level near the boundary line. The ball finished with Sam Walsh-Bannam 20 metres out.

Dartmoor led 5.1 to 1.2 after Walsh-Bannam goaled and its better players — McCrae, Polaski, Korrey Smith and Michael Oldfield — were firing.

But momentum can be as fleeting as it is valuable. Heywood grabbed the last goal of the first quarter through Bell and dominated after the break.

A 24-point deficit at the five-minute mark of the second quarter became six by half-time, with cult figure Michael Wilson central to the fightback.

Wilson kicked the Lions’ first for the term from a set shot and set up Shane Keegan for their second. But his second goal proved his true worth.

Taking ruck duties at a boundary throw-in, he discarded his opponent with ease, grabbed the ball out of mid-air and snapped truly in one motion.

Heywood was back in the contest by the long break and should have been ahead, such was its weight of possession.

But Dartmoor, namely McCrae and Smith, would wrestle the grand final from them with an unspectacular-but-decisive 3.5 to 0.4 third term.

McCrae snapped his third shortly after the restart and had the crowd roaring when his fourth — a banana — sailed through.

Smith, an influential presence throughout, then outmarked Keegan at the 13-minute mark and converted the set shot.

The goal was the first nail in the Lions’ coffin. For all their toil to get back into the contest, the margin was back out to 24 points. 

Shane Jones and Lachlan Polaski hammered the next two nails in with goals to open the last term:  the score 12.12 to 6.9.

Heywood fought valiantly thereafter and finished off with the last four goals of the match. But the damage was done. The season belonged to Dartmoor.

As celebrations continued on-field, the symmetry between the pre-season and grand final day revealed itself.

Dartmoor changed its nickname from Swans to Giants in February, a move which honours bush boy-turned-AFL star Jeremy Cameron.

The footballers lived up to the moniker on Saturday, with Cameron watching from behind the fence.