LET TOUR:Cork's Claire Coughlan added a three-under-par 69 to her one-under-par overnight total to lie just two shots off the pace in joint second place heading into the final round of the LET Final Qualifying School at La Cala Resort in Spain.

England's Samantha Head is one shot clear of the field on six-under-par 210 after carding six birdies and an eagle in her best-of-the-day 65.

Overnight leader Hanna Leena Solonen from Finland added a 74 to slip to joint fifth place on three under par.

Coughlan's steady play saw her birdie the second, fourth, fifth and 12th and carded just one bogey on the 17th, where she missed the green.

Martina Gillen made the cut after carding a brave 72 in which she recovered from a double bogey at the fourth hole to birdie the fifth, eighth, 14th and 16th to lie in joint 48th place.

Hazel Kavanagh saved her best until last with a 73 but agonisingly missed the cut by two strokes on nine over par.

The top 25 after today's final round will secure full playing rights for 2007 while the next 25 will be offered conditional playing privileges.

EUROPEAN TOUR: Justin Rose recovered in style from a poor finish to his first round to claim second place at the halfway point of the MasterCard Australian Masters at Huntingdale.

After the second round Rose was two shots adrift of leader Aaron Pike, who followed up his course-record-equalling first-round 64 with a fine 69 in bright, breezy conditions.

Rose carded an excellent second-round 66 at the par-72 lay-out in Melbourne, which included eight birdies to atone for his faltering finish the previous afternoon.

Late in his round Rose was well within reach of Pike's benchmark before inexplicably dropping a shot at each of his closing three holes for a 69.

"The key to today's round was not getting upset by my finish last night," Rose said. "I walked off the golf course and okay, I finished bogey, bogey, bogey, but I think it was the second-best score of the afternoon so it was still a really good start and I looked at it positively."

Damien McGrane despite a second round of 67 is 10 shots off the pace at 143, while Gary Murphy also made the cut with a workmanlike 70 for a 144 total.

However, Peter Lawrie found his first round of 77 too much to overcome and a 70 for 147 left him two shots outside the cut-off point.

Among those to miss the cut at one over was 2005 US Open champion Michael Campbell.

JAPAN TOUR: Michelle Wie missed the cut for the 11th time in 12 professional men's events after a nervous 80 left her at 17 over par at the Casio World Open yesterday.

The Honolulu schoolgirl had faced a near-impossible task after equalling her worst score in a men's event with a nine-over 81 in freezing rain on Japan's Shikoku island on Thursday.

Wie began her second round in bright sunshine but her mood darkened after a par putt on the par-three second lipped out and two more front-nine bogeys left her at 12 over.

The 17-year-old carded an embarrassing double-bogey five on the short 11th and dropped a further three shots on the inward nine, finishing without a single birdie in 36 holes.

Wie bowed out 27 strokes behind halfway leader Tetsuya Haraguchi of Japan, who fired 68 to improve to 10 under par.

Haraguchi on 134 leads by one from Jeev Milkha Singh from India with Hideki Kase a shot further back in third place.