A draw and two wins, including a superb victory over former world champions, Brazil, has put Ireland into a qualifying position in the open championship at the World Bridge Olympiad in Maastricht.
The run of success began yesterday when Tom Hanlon, Hugh McGann, Rory Boland and Niall Toibin played a 1515 draw against Spain in round 5. In round 6 Gay Keaveney and Rory Timlin teamed up with Boland and Toibin to score an important win over Austria 17-13. The Austrians had occupied second place in the group before the match.
Against Brazil, one of the world's great teams, the Irish would have settled for a draw, even a narrow defeat. However, on the most difficult set of boards encountered in any match so far, Hanlon, McGann, Keaveney and Timlin out-scored the South Americans to register a handsome 19-11 victory. Ireland are now fourth in the group and the first four will go forward to the knock-out stages.
They meet Denmark in round 8 this morning. Hanlon, McGann, Boland and Toibin will be in action. In selecting the line-up, non-playing captain, Hastings Campbell, was mindful of the fact that three of that quartet were in the team that beat the Danes in Malta last year. Denmark currently lie sixth, only three points behind Ireland.
Following that, we meet Canada in round 9, an interesting clash as Ireland's former coach, Eric Kokish, is on the Canadian team.
In the women's championship, Ireland had a spectacular success when Pat MacMahon, Pat Ryan, Helen Carroll and Jill Kulchycky defeated Indonesia 25-4. In the previous round they had gone down to group leaders, Norway, 4-25. In round 18 they lost to Jamaica. The Irish are 14th of the 20 teams in the group.
The UCC team had two good back-to-back wins in the universities championship. The squad change partnerships from match to match. Sean O'Sullivan, Neville Pierce, Cynthia Heffron and Paul Cotter beat Latvia 20-10.
Then O'Sullivan, Pierce, Heffron and Elaine McMahon combined to defeat Singapore by the same margin.
Leaderboard Open Olympiad Championship Group A: 1, Belgium 139; 2, Poland 137; 3, Brazil 132; 4, IRELAND 128; 5, Austria 127; 6, Denmark 125; 7, Switzerland 117.
Group B: 1, Australia 153; 2, Finland 131; joint 3, Lebanon and US 128.
Group C: 1, England 145; 2, Sweden 144; 3, Indonesia 131; 4, France 125.
Group D: 1, Italy 157; 2, Argentina 138; 3, China 135; 4, Iceland 126. Women's Championship
Group A: 1, Norway 171; 2, Austria 156; 3, Denmark 145; 4, Chinese Taipei 140; 14, Ireland 107.
Group B: 1, France 162; 2, Canada 160; 3, Poland 150; joint 4 Germany and Netherlands 148.
World Senior's Cup: 1, Scotland; 2, Germany; 3, USA; 14, Ireland.
World universities championship: 1, Austria; 2, Germany; 3, Italy; 20, IRELAND.