The Roosters, who rose from an elimination final to make the decider, rallied after a scoreless opening term to defeat Portland 11.7 (73) to 5.3 (33) at Reid Oval on Saturday.

Portland jumped to an 18-point quarter-time lead but South Warrnambool levelled scores at 25 by half-time.

The Roosters made their move in the third term with a three-goal-to-one burst and had a 13-point break at the final change.

Four unanswered goals in the final quarter — three off the boot of livewire Charlie Lee — sealed their win.

South Warrnambool coach Damian Thornton said he was confident the Roosters’ strong fitness base would give them an edge in the latter stages.

“We try and play a game where we switch a lot,” he said.

“We’ve got the fitness, we’ve got the runners to come from the other side.

“We have a good midfield and we rotate that midfield off the bench.

“We knew if we could use the bench that we’d still be up and about even if the game was tight.”

Thornton, who coached the club to an under 16 flag in 2013, said South Warrnambool knew it would have to climb from an elimination final to make the grand final and prepared accordingly.

Ted Parker medallist Xavier Beks and AFL Victoria medallist Isaak O’Rourke, along with Michael Pritchard, Shaun Lucas and Ben Thornton set the tone for the Roosters in the decider.

“We started this six weeks ago with our preparation, knowing we’d be coming from fourth or fifth,” Thornton said.

“We knew the grand final was going to be here, we treated this as our home ground, so we knew that’s where it’d be won and lost.

“So we just wanted to run and spread.

“The first quarter was a little bit iffy but after that we lifted our work rate.”

It was the Roosters’ first thirds flag since 2010.

Thornton said it was a satisfying result after poor efforts against Portland in the home-and-away season.

“They’re a really classy side and the two times we’d played them throughout the year they’d had our measure,” he said. 

“They beat us by 10 goals in Portland last time we played them and us, being such a junior club, we had a lot of kids playing seniors and we knew if we could bring a couple of those back, which we did, that we might have a good chance.”

Mitch Riddell, who kicked the Tigers’ final goal deep into the third term, was their best.