It sunk Temora, 22-20, and secured Wagga Kangaroos the first premiership hat-trick in Group Nine's modern era.

But the foundations of an historic achievement were laid long before... before Power and his good mate Ben Linde had won man of the match awards in grand finals, back when they were still dreaming of first grade selection while men steeped in Kangaroos history were plotting a proud club's revival.

"The first thing that comes to my mind is Steve MacDonald, the influence that he had on the team and the club, and probably myself personally as a young man and a footy player," Linde says.

It was December 1996. Kangaroos had been just a game off the wooden spoon. MacDonald took over as coach, Craig Stephens was captain, and Linde was a 17-year-old keen to put his hand up for the hooking role.

"I still remember it as clear as day. It was stinkin' hot, and he used to flog the guts out of us. Basically the first thing he said was, 'This is day one of a three year plan," Linde recalls.

"He told us we'd possibly be in his plans if we tick these boxes and that stuck in my head. I was buzzing just thinking I'm going to be part of a first grade team.'

"In '97 and '98 we progressively got better and '99 was just... well... we got beaten once (by Adelong Batlow, at Adelong). So you look back on that, and the three-year plan, he's the guy. Just a massive part of it. I can't speak highly enough of him."

A dominant season ended with a dominant grand final performance as Kangaroos demolished Harden-Murrumburrah 40-16. Michael Pembleton and Stephens scored in the first 11 minutes to set the train in motion, and it never stopped. Power scored two and Craig Hiscock, Tony Mescia, and Mark Higginbotham also crossed for tries.

As the Hawks were relegated to runners-up for the third time in four years, Kangaroos were going the other way.

Nine different clubs had shared the nine premierships from 1990 to 1998 (including 'Roos in 1994), but a dynasty was now underway.

Power won the John Hill Medal. He and Linde were among a select group who would feature in all three victories.

"It was an unbelievable team, those three premierships really. And for eight players to play in all three...," Power says.

The others were Pembleton, Ben Wood, Martin Lancaster, Craig Hiscock, Rowan Bennett, and Ben Buttifant.

"I think it was the tightness (of the group) and the defensive structure. If we let tries in, we'd get pissed off. You played for your mates. We all played for each other," Buttifant says of their spirit. And they had the firepower to take rewards.

"We had blokes who could score tries - Craig Hiscock, Tony Mescia, Brett Ridley. At one stage we had three of the top four try scorers."

Instructions came from the coach but the on-field cues were from an inspirational captain.

"Steps (Stephens) coached me in the under 12s and to get to play alongside a bloke that coached you as a young fella, well... it shows how old he was for a start," Buttifant wisecracks.

"He was one of those guys you looked up to. He was a hard-ass. I didn't want to be a skillful footballer, I just wanted to be someone who plays hard. So I looked up to Steps. He didn't take a backward step.

"It's who you're around. You're around hard people and skilful people, it rubs off on you."

Alongside MacDonald, drumming home the ethos, the culture and the game plan, was a canny assistant coach.

"I don't think we could've done it without Peter Rands," Buttifant says.

"I've been coached by some pretty handy blokes and Randsy, to me, he's the pick - just his structure and everything he had for us. After winning in '99, we lost about six or seven players and the following year we won, and lost another six or seven players. To keep the structure and be able to bring blokes in, he was good for us."

Rands' arrival ensured a talented side rose to its potential.

"He was probably polar opposite in philosophy and coaching techniques (to MacDonald) but their core principles were the same. That's the hard work and there's no reward without effort. It was the perfect balance really, the whole dynamic," Linde says.

The original three-year-plan was a success, and it had already been superseded by new ambition.

'Roos partied like premiers and then prepared for another one. Key departures were offset by strong arrivals, including veteran hooker Chas Mascini, a Weissel Medallist and 1994 premiership player, and Paul Heffernan, who'd won an under 16s premiership with Kangaroos (alongside Pembleton) before five years at North Sydney Bears and two premiership-winning seasons with Woy Woy on the Central Coast.

MacDonald and Stephens postponed their retirement plans and all was set for a second tilt. Except the mindset.

"We lost about five of our first six games," Stephens says.

"We were still in party mode from the year before and we just never had our head on. It's one of those things, you win a premiership and you think everything's going to come to you.

"I think that was a big lesson for a few of the young blokes, that you've still got to get in and work to get a premiership. And that's the way we played in those first five or six games.

"I don't think anyone was really going to stop us once we got into our mojo and got our heads right."

It took some doing, including a players' crisis meeting at the captain's place after a 50-point hiding by Turvey Park. The Group Nine rumour mill was abuzz when it was known the coach wasn't there.

"I don't think 'Donno' was too happy about it but it was a meeting of the players to say 'C'mon, we've got to pull our fingers out. We've got to work for this.' The next week we got done again and 'Donno' come in the sheds and tore us a new one. From then on, we were right."

'Roos weren't helped by having five players in the Riverina side after their dominant 1999. Heffernan, joined in that representative team by Power, Hiscock, Wood and Martin Lancaster, also remembers "an impassioned plea" from Rands at training in the early rounds.

Whether it was the crisis talks, the sprays, or rep players returning, a light flickered when they travelled to Tumbarumba.

"It was definitely a switch-on thing," Heffernan says.

"Tumba were the top team and we were building. We lost to them up there, but we nearly beat them... that was when I started to feel comfortable and we went on from there. Coming into finals, although we only finished fourth, we felt really confident."

The team was always heavy on forwards but a game plan built on field position and quick play-the-balls was starting to look unstoppable.

They finished fourth in the top eight and were set to play the minor premiers on another dreaded road trip to Tumbarumba. Or so they thought.

"They forfeited their home ground advantage for the semi-final... we played them at Batlow because I think they wanted to save up their home ground advantage for the game to get them into the grand final," Power says.

"I'm not sure how they looked at it but it was a boost for us not having to go to Tumba. So we went to Batlow and rolled them, and then we had the week off."

By the time the teams squared off in the grand final, the Greens had played every week, and Kangaroos' horror start to the season was but a distant memory.

In front of a record crowd ($24,115 gate), a ding-dong battle ensued. Kangaroos led 18-16 at half-time but Save Tuilakeba's third try 10 minutes after the break had Tumba on top.

But Linde at dummy half was producing a man of the match performance and the pressure was mounting before Ben Wood and then Craig Hiscock crossed to secure back-to-back premierships.

This time, the curtain did come down on MacDonald's stint as coach, and Stephens' playing career.

"I was blessed really. I can't whinge about it (not playing on in 2001)," Stephens says.

The prop who'd started his career with a premiership in 1987 under MacDonald ended it with a fourth first grade grand final win, under the same mentor.

"It was good fun, good times. But it was a pretty awesome side really when you look at it," Stephens says.

"Hissy (Hiscock) just scored tries; Baden Power is probably one of the best players that's played for Roos, then we had a big dominant forward pack: Butters, Marty Lancaster, Ben Wood, Pembo - he was the smallest player and probably the best defender in the Group."

Stephens reserves particular praise for Wood.

"He's up there in the top five that I've played footy with. Unassuming, does his work and when you needed something done, he'd do it. Especially after 2000, he took on a dominating role, and looked after young blokes," he says.

Heffernan succeeded Stephens as captain and Mascini took over as coach after retiring as a player.

"He's a quieter bloke and he did well because we had awesome juniors coming up, and he had to manage people who maybe might think we've done all this before," Heffernan says.

"We did awesome all year. We didn't flog people but we only lost the first game and we had a draw against Temora."

That was their only meeting with the Dragons before the teams took their respective paths to grand final day. By then, Gary Dowling, Jermaine Packer, Nigel Plum and Ben McCrone had well and truly emerged.

"When we were so strong, it was so easy to blood the juniors," Power says.

"They were able to play a few first grade games when they were 16 and 17 because we were dominant. Then they can carve up, they get confident. They think it's easy."

It wasn't easy when Temora drew level in the second half and 'Roos' momentum was in danger of fading.

But this third instalment of winners had a mix of youthful brilliance and experienced belief.

"We just had that belief instilled in us. No matter what we were confronted with we knew that someone - there was so much strike-power across the park - someone will get us out of this. That was a really, really good feeling," Linde says.

The hooker, who says Mascini helped put a calming influence in his game, was powering towards a second consecutive John Hill Medal.

But it was a young fullback who delivered the 'something' in 2001.

Dowling had scored in the first half, off a Scott MacDonald set-up, and tries to Power and Wood had helped Roos to a 20-6 lead with 23 minutes left.

That was when Temora got going and Dowling (who 'Roos had heard was going to be targeted by the opposition) produced a critical play that swung field position and momentum.

"They were coming back and coming back and we were trying to stem their flow," Heffernan says.

"They put in big, long kick but Gary Dowling did an awesome kick return, broke a few tackles and got down (the field). From that set, we were in an attacking position instead of trying to work our way out and from that, they gave away an offside penalty..."

The script was written.

"Yeah, I kicked the penalty goal," Power says. "Poor fella... we put a kick in and their front rower dived on it, when he was way off-side. It was silly."

There was adversity before history with Pembleton and Lancaster under serious injury clouds after the previous final. They'd consulted the physio, none other than the skipper, Heffernan.

"Marty and Pembo had big knee injuries," he says.

"Pembo shouldn't have played, by all means, but getting them to be able to start the game was a big mental thing for us. And for them (Temora) if they'd realised they weren't playing..."

It was a calculated risk. Pembleton's injury was the worse of the two. It would have rubbed him out for six to eight weeks during the season. But the captain was confident it was a gamble worth taking.

"You have to be effective and I knew, even if he wasn't going to be as effective as he normally would be - knocking blokes over and punching through the line - I knew he'd be effective. I knew he'd be steady and we'd have enough structure around him to be right. For him not to start would've been worse."

They got their three-peat but it was never about individuals as much as the club, from top to bottom.

"It was just a really good time to be part of the club. It comes from the top, we had a great committee with Mark Kennedy and Geoff Honey and Tom Looney. And we had great teams," Pembleton says.

"It was just a special time."