THIS year's Northbrook Cup final was sweet revenge for the Rising Sun, who were beaten 5-0 by Harestock in last year's showpiece.

But for the much of the first half it seemed that a repeat of that result could well be on the way.

Although the Riser had the better of the first 10 minutes, Harestock went ahead after the linesman adjudged that Mark Hermitage had been fouled in the area. The referee gave a penalty, and Hermitage stepped up to score from the spot.

End to end attacking play produced a good game. Most of the pressure came from the Riser but, for a while, nothing came of it - even though Paul Harfield hit the crossbar from 25 yards.

It was in the second half when everything changed. The Rising Sun came out like a fresh team and on 55 minutes a long ball over the defence found Mark Feltham waiting to score.

Harestock were rocked and tried to get back at the Riser, but seven minutes later they fell behind when Karl Butcher forced his way through the defence and crossed low and hard, forcing Byron Malster to put the ball into his own net.

The steam seemed to go out of a few of the Harestock players and on 73 minutes their defence failed to clear a Riser free kick. Butcher latched onto the ball and drove it into the net, James Dunn just getting his fingers to the ball but not being able to stop it.

The final nail in the Harestock coffin came on 80 minutes as the ball was threaded past the Harestock defence for Butcher to run on and lob the onrushing Dunn.