Irish Cups and Shields finals: The intrinsic beauty of matchplay golf is that a match ebbs and flows, invariably with a change of fortune - for better or for worse - lurking around the corner.

And, yesterday, in the Bulmers Irish Cups and Shields finals at Enniscrone, the shenanigans in the respective Senior Cup semi-finals simply served to underline the fact that, once on a golf course, you play right to the death.

For the record, Knock, the Ulster champions, defeated Cork, the Munster champions, by a 3-2 margin, while Galway, the Connacht champions, emerged as 3 ½ to 1 ½ winners over Leinster kingpins, The Island. But Knock, more than anyone, will know that the bare result fails to tell the entire story, as two of their wins - by Michael Sinclair and Nicky Grant - arrived only after being forced into sudden-death holes. It was intriguing stuff, to be sure.

Sinclair, an Irish international, must have wondered if his late-night drive to be part of Knock's quest for a history-making win in the Senior Cup had been worth the effort when he trailed Cork's Mark Ford by three holes walking onto the ninth tee.

Playing the course blind, it seemed that whenever he did anything right, Ford simply did it better. For instance, when he lipped out for eagle on the seventh, Ford proceeded to chip-in for eagle and, then, Sinclair went three-down when three-putting the eighth.

But Sinclair need not have worried that the gods were conspiring against him, or his team. For, in a demonstration that perseverance is a worthy trait to possess in the white-hot atmosphere of matchplay combat, Sinlair was to triumph at the 20th hole, while teenager Grant, also demonstrating a measure of doggedness, then contrived to win his match over Seán McSweeney at the same 20th hole in similar manner.

While Ted McAnoy was accounting for Pat Lyons by a 5 and 4 margin, the other matches weren't so clear-cut and, with Tom Cleary and Gary O'Flaherty eventually securing singles wins for Cork, the decisive matches were those that went into extra time.

Firstly, Sinclair had recovered from being three down after eight holes by winning the ninth and 11th holes in birdies and the 13th to go all-square.

Unfortunately for him, he hit the wrong ball on the 14th to go back to trailing by one hole only to level matters again on the short 17th before securing a win with a birdie at the 20th, the second tie hole.

Grant had been involved in a game of nip and tuck with McSweeney, the concluding holes epitomising the fluctuating nature of the contest. Grant won the 17th to go one-up, only for McSweeney to win the 18th to send the match into tie holes where Grant, an Irish youths international, won at the 20th.

With three teenagers in their ranks - Grant (19), James Patterson (17) and Colin Fairweather (15) - Knock will be giving away a significant amount of experience to a Galway team that showed perseverance of their own to overcome The Island.

Joe Lyons led the way for Galway with a 5 and 4 win over David Rawluk in the top match, but the matches behind were heart in mouth affairs.

Eddie McCormack finally accounted for Eoin O'Sullivan by one hole in a high quality match. It was a ding-dong affair, exemplified by what happened on the 14th where O'Sullivan rolled in a 35 footer for birdie only for McCormack to follow him in from 25 feet.

The turning point came on the par five 16th when O'Sullivan, hitting a rare loose shot, pulled his three-wood approach to the green into thick rough. It took him three shots to finally escape the tigerish rough and, with his opponent on the green in two, it gave McCormack the edge which he kept with fine up-and-downs on the final two greens.

Galway sealed victory when David Scully overcame Declan Moran by 3 and 1 in the middle match. Scully's intent was obvious from early on, when, despite losing a ball off the tee on the second hole, he still managed a par five.

Having hit three-wood off the tee with his second ball, he had 265 yards to the front of the green and hit three-wood again to the heart of the most precarious putting surface on the course and rolled in the 25 footer to win the hole and then won the third and fourth to establish a three-hole lead.

Although Moran got back to one down after 14 holes, Scully recovered by winning the 16th and 17th to ensure Galway's advancement.

Charleville claimed a first green pennant when defeating Loughrea 3-2 in a dramatic final of the Pierce Purcell Shield. The outcome came down to the last foursomes match, and it didn't look good for Charleville when Tom Barrett hooked his approach into heavy rough. Fearing the worse, they played a provisional which, as it turned out, wasn't needed.

From the rough, Steven Moloney chopped the ball out and ran it between two bunkers onto the green, eventually two-putting from 25 feet for a one hole win over John Dervan and Matt Kavanagh.