Hebburn Town 4 Sunderland RCA 3

Hebburn faced a strong Sunderland RCA squad which narrowly missed promotion last season and who are fancied to be in the frame in the current campaign. Again Hebburn were forced to make several changes with Chris Neil, Colin Nesbitt and Paul Donaghy unavailabe although David Myers and Paul Trosh returned after injury and Joe Donaghy was brought out of 'retirement' to skipper the young side.

Habburn has been conceding early goals and the Wearsiders got off to a dream start when Joe Donaghy failed to clear and the resultant cross was volleyed home by Gary Shields from 4 yards after only 45 seconds. The home side were clearly rattled and RCA should have gone further ahead from a header at the back post with only keeper Gary Frater to beat;fortunately for Hebburn the weak effort went wide of the post. The Hebburn boys appeared to be lifted by this and in the 32nd minute Nick Pain threaded a fine pass through a square defence for Steven Rutherford to drive accross the face of the goal into the far corner to level the score. Although RCA had more of the play in the first half hour the Hebburn mid-field and in particular Finbar Lynch started to control the game and the latter beat three defenders in a fine run which ended with Michael Armstrong volleying home just before the interval.

Hebburn Town started the second half well and applied early pressure on the RCA defence and Carroll, Lynch and Armstrong all had opportunitues to increase the lead and as long as there was only one goal separating the sides RCA were still in the game. In the 70th minute Daniel Gray powered a header into the top corner following a measured cross from Robert Marsden to make the score 3-1. Shortly after a fine move involving four Hebburn players ended with Lynch firing narrowly wide and this was to prove costly when the ball was moved quickly upfield for substitute Dean Goodwin to score easily and reduce the deficit.

However Hebburn continued to play good football and chances were scorned before Sean Carroll scored the goal of the game with a curling shot from the edge of the box to give a two goal cushion, in the 88th minute. Hebburn should have closed the game out at this stage but again they allowed RCA to add a third goal from Jennings in the final minute and were forced to hang on as the Referee somehow found seven minutes additional time and a nail-biting finish.