Any Ireland versus England tie is a mouthwatering prospect, and the quarterfinal clash at the European Amateur Team Championship in Estonia was no different.
Finishing tied on -16 after two rounds of strokeplay, the Irish men earned the higher seed for the matchplay bracket by virtue of having the lower second-round total, but it mattered little as they were destined to square off in the first knockout stage regardless.
Heavy rain was forecast overnight at Estonian Golf and Country Club on the Tallinn outskirts, and as a result, the traditional two foursomes and five singles format was altered to one foursomes match and four singles, meaning all six of the players on each side were guaranteed to have action.
Team Ireland captain Damien Coyne opted to pair Caolan Rafferty and Matthew McClean in foursomes, and led with Stuart Grehan who finished tied for fourth on the individual strokeplay leaderboard in singles, followed by Gavin Tiernan, John Doyle and Thomas Higgins.
Pairing the Dundalk and Malone men proved to be a wise choice as they ran out 3&2 winners over Lewy Heward and Sebastian Cave, but Eliot Baker, Grehan’s Walker Cup foursomes partner last year at Cypress Point, earned revenge on the man who beat him in the round of 64 enroute to winning the Amateur Championship and took the County Louth man down 5&3.
Tiernan, another County Louth man, restored Ireland’s advantage with a clutch 1UP win over Sam Easterbrook in match number three, and with the remaining two matches going to the wire, it was down to Doyle and Higgins to get them over the line.
Neither of Doyle’s scores were counted in the strokeplay rounds, but the Fota Island man showed all his grit and determination and secured the all-important third point with a 1UP win over Harley Smith, and Roscommon’s Higgins halved the anchor match with Tom Osborne as Ireland ran out 3.5-1.5 winners.
They now face Italy in the semi-finals after the Azzurri upset number-one seeds Finland with a narrow 3-2 victory in the opening series of matches.
On the lower half of the bracket, number-three seeds France took care of Switzerland and they’ll face the host nation after Estonia took out the Netherlands in a thrilling encounter that saw the final three matches go the distance with Estonia needing just one win having comfortably won the first two matches.
In the end, it was the anchor match that settled it, and it’s between Estonia, France, Ireland and Italy for the gold, silver and bronze medals.
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