It's not that Kieran O'Toole has anything personal against Jesper Parnevik, in fact he's quite indebted to the Swede after his earnings, up to week 26 of the competition, helped put his manager in contention for the £10,000 first prize.

But, last week, manager and player parted company - Kieran called Jesper aside, shook his hand, said "Thanks for everything," and sacked him. With three transfers still to make, our leader felt the time had come to freshen up the Chislers by adding some new blood.

So did Jesper come back to haunt Kieran at the weekend? In a word, yes. Now he didn't do anything drastic, like go and win the World Series in Ohio at the weekend - which is fortunate because Kieran had told us he would jump off the roof of Liberty Hall if that happened. Actually, he only tied for 26th, but the Golf Masters cheque he received, for £13,500, was almost £10,000 more than Padraig Harrington won at the European Open in Kildare . . . and Harrington was the man Kieran chose to replace Parnevik in his team.

So the strategy of picking a player familiar with the course at the K Club didn't quite work for Kieran, who saw two more of his line-up in Straffan miss the cut - Eamonn Darcy and Roger Chapman. It was left to Jose-Maria Olazabal (at the European Open) and Lee Westwood and Scott McCarron (at the World Series) to save the Chislers' weekend by winning £150,000 between them.

Meanwhile, Edward Staunton's Woosnam's Wonders went about the business of recapturing their overall lead. With Olazabal also in his line-up, Staunton needed solid performances from Darren Clarke, Ian Woosnam, David Carter and Stephen Ames to close in on the Chislers and, with the exception of Ames, who missed the cut in Kildare, they obliged. Combined winnings of £203,625 puts the team back on top, with a lead of just over £25,000.

With only three of her Trashers in action in Kildare or Ohio, Theresa O'Sullivan never stood much of a chance of retaining her third place; Harrington, Frank Nobilo and Mark James could only win £34,000 between them, so their manager has fallen to sixth.

Matthew Ryan jumps from eighth to third this week (thanks largely to Per-Ulrik Johansson's victory at the European Open) and has opened up a gap of over £200,000 over fourth placed Paul Dowling. With just four weeks to go in the competition, £200,000 might seem an unbridgeable gap, but this time last year our eventual winner, Michael McManamon of Dublin, was £134,000 behind the leader Mike Mannion (who finished fourth), and ended up taking first prize with a few thousand to spare.

With his nameless team languishing in 13,748th place, Jim Nixon of Donegal Town doesn't have much of a personal interest in the race for first prize, but at least he will have a trip to Mount Juliet to look forward to after his line-up (all of whom played in the European Open) won £449,175 at the weekend.

Three of the seven finished in the top five: Johansson, second placed Peter Baker and Costantino Rocca, who tied for fifth. So, there are seven tournaments to go, beginning with this week's Greater Milwaukee Open and the International Open in Munich. Spare a thought for Kieran O'Toole - he has two transfers left and most of his rivals have none. Will he use them? Will he buy back Jesper Parnevik and sack Padraig Harrington? Will he leave well enough alone? Decisions, decisions . . . and this is meant to be fun?