The Irish challenge in the British Boys' Amateur Championship over the sundrenched Royal Liverpool links at Hoylake petered out disappointingly yesterday as the last three survivors all fell by the wayside in the fourth round.

Limerick teenager Cian McNamara was way below his best in going down 3 and 2 to Grant Slater, a joint winner of the Caris Trophy last month, while Dubliner David Rawluk and Nicholas Grant from Knock were beaten by Germany-based Ben Parker and 14-year-old Oliver Fisher of Essex respectively.

McNamarafound himself three down early on against Slater and, hampered by a niggling back complaint, was never able to get back into contention.

Slater later slumped to a 5 and 4 defeat to the 2002 runner-up, Rhys Davies from Wales, who is making a bold bid to go one better than last year.

Rawluk, who plays out of The Island club, knew Ben Parker, winner of the gold medal at the European Young Masters in Augsburg recently, would be difficult to overcome - and so it proved.

Parker always had the edge and won in the end by 3 and 2.

That was also the margin by which Grant was beaten by Fisher. Fisher, at 14 one of the youngest players in the tournament, has produced a series of surprise victories, and he turned in another splendid performance here, particularly around the greens - though he did lose later to Scotland's Wallace Booth.

In the quarter-finals this morning, Davies takes on the Spaniard Daniel Osorio while Booth faces the Dane Christopher Svendsen, Yorkshire's Chris Hanson meets the Welsh 15-year-old Zac Gould, the youngest player remaining, and Victor Riu of France clashes with 2001 champion Pablo Martin, a member of the Spanish senior side that won the European Team Championships in the Netherlands last month.

Meanwhile, at Pyle & Kenfig in South Wales, Ireland were left holding the wooden spoon in the Girls' Home International Championship after being beaten by England by seven matches to one, with one halved.

It looked at lunchtime as though they might sneak into third place as Wales were beating Scotland, but the Scots come from behind to triumph 5-4 and move into the runners-up spot, with Wales occupying third place.

Ireland lost all three foursomes and their only singles winner was Danielle McVeigh, who beat Claire Aitken by 4 and 2.

England were winning the title for the eighth time in nine years.