Football: Tikipunga won't rely on Force

Tikipunga are the team to beat as the round ball code makes a rare appearance on the hallowed turf of Toll Stadium in the Stafford Choat Cup final tomorrow.

They are playing their best football of the season, coach Clive Adams believes, and despite including three of their North Force players in the cup final against Central Brown - they will only start with one.

"When we've used our North Force players during the season we've been a bit disjointed so we think we'll get better rhythm when if we don't make too many changes," he said.

"To be honest I think we'll be good enough without using them, we're really hitting our straps at the moment."

Tikipunga are also in next week's Federation Cup final and hope to finish the season with two trophies. They will start Scott Burgess and have the luxury of bringing Aaron Taylor and Mark Ruddell off the bench after the trio completed their Northern League season last week with a valuable away win over Forrest Hill Milford.

The favourites for the cup face a team who have been the surprise package of the season and hope to surprise again.

Central Brown were reluctant participants in the Northland Premier Division this season after only gaining promotion from the second division last year. Against all predictions, however, they finished runner-up in the league, humbling many of the more established clubs on the way.

"It's been a great season for us, we went a lot further than we thought we would," Central Brown's Darren Johnson said.

"Our team have been improving ever since we won the second division last year ... We've got a couple of new players this year and they've helped but basically it's been a team effort."

Johnson said they had no stars returning for the final but they had performed well against the odds all season and he hoped they had one last surprise left in them.

It is the club's first appearance in the Stafford Choat Cup final in its 36-year history and with the club's reserve team in the Bowl final - against the premier champions side Kamo - it will be a memorable day for the club.

The annual season-ending knockout competition has been widened to include all senior teams in Cup, Plate and Bowl competitions.

The Plate final between Bay Cosmos' second division team and the Kamo Reserves first division side kicks off the weekend at 11am, with the Bowl final at 1pm and the Cup final at 3pm.

The action at Toll Stadium continues on Sunday with the women's Cup and Bowl finals, followed by a "golden oldies" match between the Wasps and a Northland United selection.

The women's plate final between Bream Bay and Hora Hora gets the day underway at 11am, before the main event the women's knockout final between Kerikeri High School and Kamo at 1pm.

The second annual Dave Trinder Memorial match between Wasps and Northland United Old Boys completes the weekend action. Some of the game's elder statesmen will turn out to pay tribute to Trinder, who was one of the planners behind the Northland United concept - which became the precursor to North Force.