The smiles are a mile wide in Mosgiel as the Taieri club enjoys a rich run of success. But it was not always like that. Rugby writer Steve Hepburn looks at where the Taieri club has come from and how it got there.
Victory has 100 fathers but losing is an orphan.
Never a truer word spoken, and for the Taieri rugby club, it has been a long road to get to where it is now.
The club is the new powerhouse of the Dunedin premier competition, having lost just three of its past 38 games.
There was a minor blip over Queen's Birthday - Taieri lost to both Dunedin and University A - but the Eels, bolstered by Highlanders Brad Thorn and Hayden Parker, rebounded with a big win over Kaikorai. They lead the competition by two points and are on target for a third successive banner.
How things have changed since 2001, when the club was forced to withdraw from the premier grade.
Rodger Whitson has been heavily involved in the club for many years and was part of the committee that made the decision to withdraw from the premier competition that year.
''We just did not have enough players. We ended up, at a training run before the season had started, with just five players. We had to pull the pin,'' Whitson said.
''There was a long debate with the members on what we should do, and some members wanted to stay. But we couldn't, really. We wanted to go down for one year and then come straight back but it did not work out like that.''
The club had players connected with the Sports Institute of Otago, which was based in Mosgiel in the 1990s. But it moved into Dunedin at the turn of the century, and the players went with it.
Taieri was out of the premier grade for seven long years, and one year did not even have a premier 2 side.
''We just had two teams in the entire club,'' Whitson recalled.
''But one of those was a premier colts side, and we knew we could build from there. The key was to attract local players. Sure, we lost a few local guys who wanted to play premier rugby, but we really started focusing on getting the local players and keeping them.''
They were quiet clubrooms at times and in 2002-03, the club started thinking about an amalgamation with Green Island over the hill.
''At stages, there was talk of mergers. We had a meeting organised with Green Island but they didn't turn up. Who knows what would have happened?''When we hammered Green Island the other day, a couple of the guys mentioned that meeting, how it didn't happen and how sort of ironic that was.''
The hardest path to getting out of premier 2 was actually winning the grade. Five times Taieri made the final, and five times it was conquered by Dunedin.
Longtime Taieri loose forward Erik Vaafusuaga was part of the side that finally made it out of the grade and into a promotion-relegation match with University B in 2008.
''Winning the banner was harder, in some ways. Once we got over that mental barrier of beating Dunedin, then we knew we would beat University B,'' he said.
Vaafusuaga played for Green Island in 2001 but came back to Taieri after three years away.
''I promised them I would come back and help them. It wasn't a hard decision, really. Over the years, a lot of young boys from Taieri had gone to Otago Boys' and John McGlashan but have not come back. Now they are coming back.''
Taieri beat University B 42-17 in 2008 to regain premier status. In its first year back, it won four games and finished near the bottom of the table. But in 2010, things started looking up and the Eels just missed out on the top four.
In 2011, Taieri capped its return by winning the championship, beating Harbour at Carisbrook to claim its first banner since 1955.
It repeated that success last year with a last-minute win over Dunedin, and looks well set for three in a row this year.
Club captain Mike Casey said the plan in 2009 had been to win the banner within three years. He admits that was ambitious but it happened.
The club's success has come from a combination of factors.
''We are lucky in that we are a one-club town. We are a rural club in a town competition, in some ways,'' Casey said.
''We get great support, good sponsorship and everyone is really focused on helping the club.''
On the field, captain and loose forward Charlie O'Connell coming to the club in 2010 was a huge boost, he said.
''Charlie coming here really helped us build a team round him.
''There have been other players around, such as Ben Nowell, Andrew Reid, Kieran Moffat, who have made big contributions. But Charlie coming here really showed we were serious.''
Casey said the good thing for the club was that players who had been in the premier 2 team, such as Shannon Young and Kurt Webster, were still playing.
Taieri pays scholarships - $1000 each - to go towards tertiary study for five players, and this year had to pay for only three of them, as two of the players went into the workforce and did not study. The club also gives players petrol money.
There are about 30 players from Otago Boys' High School at the club, and the clubrooms after a home game are packed.
''There is no magic wand, really,'' Casey said.
''We face lots of expenses like any other club. It comes down to a lot of hard work. About not getting complacent and looking ahead.''
