Club president Thane Brady felt the past motivated the rebuild that delivered the Bombers a fourth flag from five grand finals on Saturday.

Taylor Whitford’s charges overcame a stubborn Lauderdale to win out a grinding contest 7.21 (63) to 4.9 (33).

“It took us a long time to make our first grand final – in fact, it’s 16 years,” Brady said.

“Now we’ve won four and they’re all very satisfying in their own way. This is just a credit to all the people around the club that want to sacrifice and put in the effort.

“We continually changed – we’ve had to change coaches, we have players come and go, but the system works.

“It obviously works because of the people we have are 100 per cent committed.”

The club waited 16 years between drinks, earning the first of its title run in 2014, only punctured by a 2016 grand final defeat to Glenorchy.

The inaugural TSL win in 1995 masks the hurt of back-to-back losses, first in 1990-91 and again in 1999-2000.

Following the return of the statewide league in 2009 after almost a decade, Brady said the club started from scratch.

“Our aim in 2010 was that it would probably take three to five years to rebuild a different program,” he said.

“It wasn’t about winning all at once – we planned to maintain our position.

“We want to be top one, two, three, year in, year out.

“We didn’t want it to be boom and bust.”

The State League underwent a massive transformation in recent years, which weeded out the weaker sides.

Prospect Hawks had been forced to withdrawal entirely at the end of 2016 before Burnie joined Devonport on the outer for the 2018 season.

But not much has separated five of the remaining seven TSL teams this year.

Glenorchy and Clarence both inflicted defeats on the premiers just as Launceston came close too, while Lauderdale cast aside a slow start during coach Darren Winter’s suspension to reach the grand final from fifth place.

Brady views the Bombers’ continual dominance as the reason for one of the more balanced State League seasons for a number of years. 

“The question will be how long is it going to take for the others to catch us?” he said.

“The good thing about maintaining our standard is that the whole competition is getting better and better.

“That’s a great thing for Tasmanian football.

“We saw in this game how good Lauderdale were and how they stuck to their plan.

“It was a credit to them to come from fifth – they did a fantastic job, actually.

“All the clubs are improving and are getting better, and that’s because clubs like ours keep setting the bar.

“They are chasing us and they are wanting to knock us off, so good luck to them.”