Faldo's men even the score

Britain and Ireland have battled back to square the Seve Trophy matches with Europe at five points each.

Britain and Ireland have battled back to square the Seve Trophy matches with Europe at five points each.

Trailing 3-2 after the opening day fourballs, Nick Faldo's home team won two of the first four matches in the second round fourballs before edging the last by just one hole to level the scores.

Scotland's Marc Warren and former Britain and Ireland captain Colin Montgomerie again lost heavily, however, going down 5 and 3 to Frenchmen Raphael Jacquelin and Gregory Havret. Yesterday the pair had been overwhelmed by Swedes Robert Karlsson and Peter Hanson.

Havret was on fire on the back nine with a run of five birdies in six holes to close down the match.

READ MORE

Warren began the day nursing an injury he had suffered in a bizarre accident the previous night. The Scot shattered a light-shade in his hotel room while practising his golf swing and needed six stitches in cuts on his arms and abdomen.

Having declared himself fit, Warren refused to blame his accident for the heavy defeat.

"Physically I am 100 per cent fit," he told reporters. "I actually birdied the first two holes. But for two days in a row we've come up against guys holing putts from everywhere. We were five or six under ourselves."

Welshman Bradley Dredge and England's Phillip Archer, though, provided a similar crushing for Karlsson and Hanson this time, closing down their match at the 14th with a 5 and 4 success.

English duo Simon Dyson and Oliver Wilson then defeated Danes Thomas Bjorn and Soren Hansen 3 and 2, before Mikko  Ilonen and Markus  Brier struck back for Europe with a one hole win over Nick  Dougherty and Graeme  Storm.

That left the ball in the court Englishmen Justin  Rose and Paul  Casey, who eventually triumphed over the Spanish pairing of Miguel Angel Jiménez  and Gonzalo Fdez-Castaño by the narrowest of margins.