Ireland had a reversal of fortune at the Prokom European Bridge Championships in Warsaw yesterday when they beat Greece 16-14 in round six and followed up with a 17-13 win over Israel in round seven.
In round five, John Carroll, Tommy Garvey, Nick FitzGibbon and Adam Mesbur had gone down 11-19 to Switzerland in a match they had expected to win and the Irish put in another poor performance against the lowly placed Swiss.
Tom Hanlon and Hugh McGann joined Carroll and Garvey against Greece. Facing defeat for most of the match, they brought in a game swing on the last of the 20 deals to win by the narrowest of margins.
Hanlon, McGann, FitzGibbon and Mesbur teamed up against Israel and held their opponents scoreless for 16 deals. A game swing and a passed out board went Israel's way towards the end but the performance has restored Irish morale.
The Irish face stiff opposition in the next three rounds. Hanlon, McGann, Carroll and Garvey will line out against Croatia, who lie 13th on the leaderboard and have beaten Sweden. Then they will face England and Italy.
England are in second place but Ireland will go into the match with the advantage of having comprehensively beaten the same English side in the home international championship this year.
Italy even at this early stage looks like winning its seventh European championship in a row. Irish non-playing captain David Jackson will not reveal his line-up until just before each match.
Leaderboard (after 7 rounds)
1 Italy 148.0
2 England 128.0
3 Netherlands 127.0
4 Sweden 125.5
5 Finland 125.0
6 Hungary 121.0
7 Belarus 120.0
8 Bulgaria 119.0
9 Iceland 117.0
10 Germany 116.0
Selected
14 Scotland 108.0
19 IRELAND 101.0
27 Wales 90.0