Ireland kept alive their hopes of retaining the European Boys' Team golf title over the Upsala course in Sweden yesterday - but only by the skin of their teeth. Calculators had to be used to decide whether they would actually scrape into the top flight for the matchplay phase.

Ireland, Switzerland and Scotland all ended up with 36-hole totals of 749 - and there was only space for two of them in the top flight. So it was decided by the addition of the two cards discounted by each country and it worked out that the unlucky country was Scotland.

Ireland will today face Sweden while top qualifiers England play Switzerland.