The Cats’ five-wicket triumph over Bookaar secured them their fourth consecutive South West Cricket division one premiership.

Their string of successes sit second to Cobden’s five in a row from 1996-97 to 2000-01. Cobden is the only other side to achieve premier and champion honours, having been unbeatable in both the 1999-2000 and 2000-01 seasons.

Mortlake captain Todd Lamont was one of eight Cats who have been members of all four grand final victories.

“When we hang the pennant up tonight it will be four in a row,” he said.

“It was hi-ho three in a row last year and this year it will be hi-ho four in a row. 

“Honestly we haven’t talked about it much at all. 

“We just do what we have to do. There will certainly be a lot of talk about it this week but from my point of view it’s about winning the game. 

“Looking back in 10, 20, 30 years when you have your reunions it will be a great achievement and something that might not get done again at the club.

“It’s a great thrill.”

Lamont said winning a premiership was tough but repeating the success was even harder.

“I reckon the thing that helped us was we lost two before we won one with the same group of players. 

“It makes you hungry and once you get a taste of it and what you have to do to win a final, it gives you an edge over your opponent especially against Bookaar today because only one of their players has played in a grand final before.”

Lamont used his grand final experience at the coin toss on Saturday. He was unsure what to do when the coin landed his side up.

“I don’t like chasing runs in finals but it’s hard to bat down at Terang first because of the nature of the wicket,” he said.

“For our batsmen to get the best conditions and our bowlers to get the best conditions we took the risk of bowling first.”

He was vindicated in sending Bookaar in to bat when star all-rounder Clinton Baker took four early wickets. After 20 overs Bookaar was 5-21 — a position it never recovered from despite a valuable 66-run partnership between Simon Baker (38) and Lachie Green (30) for the sixth wicket.

“We had them 5-87 at tea and I was thinking they could get 200 easily here but fortunately we picked up Simon straight after tea and then ran through them,” Lamont said.

But the Cats, chasing 110 for victory, went to stumps on Saturday night at 2-50.

“I was pretty nervous over night,” Lamont said.

“That’s the exact same position we were in four years ago and we stumbled over the line.”

Simon Baker produced a lion-hearted spell of bowling yesterday when play resumed, picking up 6-49 from 19 overs, but Mortlake, thanks to 54 from Clinton Baker, achieved its victory target five wickets down before batting on to be dismissed for 185.

Bookaar captain Fraser Lucas said he was like Lamont, unsure what to do if he had won the toss given a bit of side-ways movement early.

He said he admired Mortlake’s achievement and wanted his young side to stick together and try to build a dynasty like its opponent.

“To win four flags in a row is pretty rare. I can’t see it happening again for a while,” Lucas said.

“For us as a group, hopefully we can turn this into something bigger and better.

“In the last six years they have lost two and won four grand finals. 

“We’ve lost a semi-final and now a grand final. We could try and model ourselves on that.

“I think as a group this season has been successful even though we haven’t got the result we wanted.

“We have gone two steps forward from last year in that we lost last year’s semi-final but this year we got ourselves into the top two, won a semi-final and made the grand final. 

“It was another year of cricket where we grew and we started to find something within the group. 

“The last six weeks of cricket has shown just how far we have come.”

n In other grand finals, Port Campbell won division two by nine wickets over Boorcan with Ashley Price named player of the match after an unbeaten 87 for Port Campbell. 

Heytesbury Rebels defeated Pomborneit by four wickets in division three with batsman Michael Clements’ unbeaten 59 anchoring the run-chase and earning him man of the match.