A level-par 71 ensured Paul Dunne remained at one-under after 54 holes at the Cazoo Open supported by Gareth Bale giving him an opportunity to register a first top-10 finish on the DP World Tour since 2019.
Dunne is in a share of eleventh, ten shots adrift of Callum Shinkwin who leads Julien Gurrier by the minimum.
The Greystones man is just four shots shy of Connor Syme in third place and one behind a four-way tie for seventh heading into the final round.
After an opening 70, Dunne has signed for consecutive rounds of 71 and today was another steady performance at Celtic Manor, trading a pair of birdies with a double-bogey six on the sixth.
It has been a promising week for the 2017 British Masters winner who made just his fourth cut of the season after returning from two years of injury hell while also arresting a run of seven successive weekends off.
While Shinkwin (65) and Gurrier (68) look set for a shootout between themselves, who finishes as best of the rest is very much up for discussion and a good final round can push Dunne into that conversation and a morale boosting result.
Meanwhile Niall Kearney went backwards on moving day with a five-over 76 which leaves him on eight-over-par.
The Royal Dublin golfer played from back to front and a steady front nine with a bogey on 14 and birdie on 15 saw him turn in 35.
However, his back nine was bookended by horror stories. A triple-bogey seven was a hammer blow before two bogeys in his last three holes saw him home in a chastening 41.
Celtic Manor a former host of the Ryder Cup in 2010 has proven to be a happy hunting ground for Shinkwin finishing fourth and joint-eighth in his last two outings there while Frenchman Guerrier, who notched four birdies and a solitary bogey in his 68 is chasing a maiden DP World Tour win.
England’s Shinkwin began the day two shy of Guerrier and that gap was extended to three after nine holes but he came home with four unanswered birdies to steal a march at the summit.
Scoring HERE
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