While the top golfers of Europe have been doing battle with their North American counterparts for many years in the Ryder Cup, last week a similar friendly war was fought for the first time in the bridge world, with Ireland having the honour of staging the initial joust.
Over four days at the Templeogue Centre in Dublin the stars of European bridge went head to head against the cream of the US with the objective of taking their scalps in the form of the Warren Buffett Cup. It was not to be. The transatlantic invaders went away with the spoils, winning in the end by a comfortable margin of 23 points.
However, had all the other members of the team played half as well as Tom Hanlon from Rochfortbridge, Co Westmeath, Hugh McGann from Fermoy, Co Cork, and the current world champions, Norberto Bocchi and Giorgio Duboin, from Italy, the Europeans would have come home in a canter.
The programme was firstly the pairs over 55 boards, then the teams over 84 and lastly the individual over 66 - a marathon test of 205 boards.
After the second round of the pairs Europe had established a lead of 12 points, but the Americans fought back admirably and had levelled the scores at nil-all by the time the fifth and final round was finished.
Quite a different pattern emerged in the teams. It was the Americans who took the lead, and they were 6 points up after two matches.
The Europeans responded by not alone whittling away the lead to zero, but also had gone 9 points ahead by the time the sixth and final match had been completed.
Before the individual test began some experts had forecast that the Americans would have the edge, as more of them played the same system, thus reducing the risk of misunderstandings in the bidding.
Maybe that is the explanation for the European collapse, but there is no doubt that the USA turned a minus of 9 points into a plus of 23.
The outcome of the championship apart, the home supporters' main interest was in how the two Irish players would perform.
While a peculiar method of scoring which does not balance was used, the following figures speak for themselves.
The points contributed to, or taken from, the cause of Europe by each pair were as follows:
1, Bocchi/Duboin +30;
2, Hanlon/McGann +27;
3, Geir Helgemo, Tor Helness (Norway) -7;
4, Jan Jansma, Louk Verhees, Netherlands (and the non-playing captain, Paul Hackett, England, who stood in for the latter on the final day) -9; 5, Sabine Auken, Daniela von Arnim (Germany) -15;
6, Jason and Justin Hackett (England) -22.
David Jackson (Ireland) took Hackett's place as non-playing captain.
USA: 1, Bobby Levin, Steve Weinstein +21; 2, Bob Hamman, Paul Soloway +9; 3, Fred Gitelman, Geoff Hampson +5; 4, Zia Mahmood, Roy Welland -4; 5, Jill Levin, Jill Meyers -16; 6, David Berkowitz, Larry Cohen -19. The non-playing captain was Donna Compton.
The directors of the championship were: F O'Boyle, Joe Murray, A Mealy, M Basquille and G Lessells.