South Tamworth captain Chris Skilton says their drought-breaking Twenty20 triumph is a reflection on the "culture change" and "great spirit" around the club, and hopes it can serve as a catapult to more success in just over a month's time.
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They haven't held the Wombramurra Rose Bowl Trophy since the 2017-18 season, when they ended Old Boys' run.
That was, before Friday night, the last time they won any first grade silverware.
Pipping finals opponents Bective-East for top spot on quotients, Souths controlled things pretty much from the outset after club coach Trent Weir let loose.
"We've been planning and thinking about our cricket for a fair while and [Friday] night some of the plans that we put in place came off really well," Skilton said.
He spoke about wanting to win the first six overs with the bat and likewise the ball, which they did.
Sent in by the Bulls, Weir quickly made them regret that decision as he plundered 54 from 29 balls.
It was exactly the "proactive" start they were after, conscious that as the ball softened the Bulls had "some good spin bowlers" that could "bog it down through the middle" and it would get harder to score.
That was part of the thinking in elevating Weir to open, knowing that he has the ability to hit the ball hard.
He's also played a lot of cricket and has "great game awareness".
It was the former Sydneysider's first real opportunity to show what he's got, batting down the order in his only three other bats for them.
"He's still a bit rusty, he hasn't really been batting much in the nets," Skilton said.
"But he's got very good hand-eye and can hit the ball really well."
"I think they probably missed a trick in terms of how they bowled.
"They probably bowled a bit too short to him and a bit too wide and gave him a bit of width and he just put his hands through the ball and it came off."
Fellow opener Josh Richards also made 35, George Wilson an unbeaten 30 and the skipper a quick-fire 16 to propel Souths to 6-152 from their 20 overs.
The Bulls were then always pretty well behind the eight ball and bundled out for 80 as Wilson again demonstrated his allround capabilities with 4-17.
"He's not an express bowler but he's very smart," Skilton said.
"He's got a variety of different change ups and he always bowls attackingly at the stumps."
The other five bowlers shared the rest of the wickets.
Adam Jones (23) was the Bulls' top-scorer and Ben Taylor (3-23) their best performer with the ball.
Skilton said it was nice to have a "dominant win" after winning a couple of games in the last couple of overs.
