Simon Hanna’s extra-time winner gives Comber Rec Christmas Day glory in Steel and Sons Cup final

Comber Rec 3 Crumlin Star 2 (AET)

Comber Rec celebrate their Steel and Sons Cup victory at Seaview

Local boy made good Simon Hanna was the hero for Comber as his extra-time winner sealed a dramatic Steel Cup victory at Seaview for his hometown team.

The classy No 8 tapped home into an empty net from just outside the box in the second period of extra-time after Star keeper Ciaran McNeill and substitute Kevin Trainor had clattered into each other.

For the ball to fall to anyone, it had to be the former Sheffield Wednesday trainee, arguably the best player on the pitch and a dyed-in-the-wool Comber man.

The game had ebbed and flowed before that, with Stephen Smyth firing Star into a first half lead, before Comber hit back, first through Dylan Wilson late in the second half, and then Eliot Wilson in extra-time as they went 2-1 up.

An Aidan McNeill free-kick meant that lead was short-lived, setting a finely-poised tie up for Hanna’s late winner.

Heading into the final, much talk centred on Star’s experience in finals, having won nine over the last decade or so to Comber’s none, including five at this venue, and two at Windsor.

And they certainly settled quickest, with Star’s strapping No 10 Dee Fearon menacing early on, seeing an early effort blocked by Corey Pollock, and then selling the Comber stopper a dummy shortly after, only to end up too wide with the angle against him.

On 31 minutes, Star broke the deadlock, with Smyth smashing low and hard into the bottom corner after some good work down the right flank.

It had been coming, with the Ardoyne outfit slicker, tidier, more fired-up in the opening 45.

Comber were in need of a spark, and ironically it looked like Star would provide it after the break, with a few soft