Ireland will face Estonia in the European Amateur Champion Team Championship final after they survived a nail-biting semi-final encounter against Italy with Matthew McClean clinching the heroic winning point.
After taking care of England in the weather-delayed and format-reduced quarter final, it was back to the traditional two foursomes matches and five singles for the semi finals as fourth-seeded Ireland took on the eighth-seeded Italians who’d upset the number-one seeded Finland the previous day.
Team manager Damien Coyne kept faith with Dundalk’s Caolan Rafferty and Matthew McClean of Malone to lead out the foursomes matches after they’d impressed as a winning partnership against England, but they fell to Francesco Petrangeli and Biagio Andrea Gagliardi who prevailed 1UP.
Next, the Tuam man sent out Gavin Tiernan and Thomas Higgins against Giovanni Binaghi and Michele Ferrero, and, in another match that went the distance, the County Louth/Roscommon duo levelled the tie by the narrowest of margins.
Despite losing to Walker Cup foursomes partner Eliot Baker in the match against England, Stuart Grehan showed the form that saw him finish fourth in individual strokeplay qualifying and become the Amateur champion in a convincing 4&3 win over Ricardo Fantinelli before Tiernan backed up his foursomes success with a 2&1 singles win over Philippo Ponzano to move the Irish to within a point of victory.
It was a point that wouldn’t come easy, however. In the anchor match, Higgins and Ferrero again squared off with the Italian gaining revenge with a 3&2 win, leaving Fota Island’s John Doyle and McClean entrusted with getting Ireland over the line.
Doyle’s match see-sawed throughout, with the Cork teenager leading 2UP at the halfway mark but having to come from 1DOWN on the back nine to tie the encounter as they headed to the last, but Gagliardi kept Italian hopes alive by winning 18, leaving McClean and Binaghi in a winner takes all situation.
Tied through 15, 16 and 17, they still couldn’t be separated after 18 holes so went to the 19th in sudden-death. And it was McClean who held his nerve and won the first extra hole to send Ireland through to the European Amateur Team Championship final for the first time since 2014 when Paul Dunne, Jack Hume, Gary Hurley, Dermot McElroy, Gavin Moynihan and Cormac Sharvin fell 5-2 to Spain in the Gold Medal decider.
Ireland’s last victory in the event came in 2008 as Jonathan Caldwell, Paul Cutler, Niall Kearney, Shane Lowry, Paul O’Hanlon, and Gareth Shaw recorded a memorable final victory over England in Turin, completing a successful defence of the trophy earned by Caldwell, Lowry, Shaw, Rory McIlroy, Richard Kilpatrick and Simon Ward the year prior at Western Gailes in Scotland.
The final opponents in this year’s staging are the host nation, Estonia. The seventh seeds upset the Netherlands in the quarter final, then staged another upset as they took down France 5-2 in the semi final.
After winning both opening foursomes matches, Estonia were in a strong position going into the singles and though France won the second singles tie comfortably and were leading well in the final two, Richard Teder and Mattias Varjun secured the points Estonia needed and the final two matches were declared halved with the French comeback no longer possible.
This means that Ireland will have to overcome both the Estonian team and the partisan fans in tomorrow’s decider, but that would only make victory all the sweeter for Damien Coyne and his team.
Meanwhile, the Irish Boys team secured promotion back to Division 1 with a comprehensive semi-final victory over Poland in the Division 2 European Amateur Boys Team Championship at Costa Navarino in Greece and they’ll face Finland in the division decider tomorrow.
The Irish Girls team missed out on the top eight in strokeplay qualifying but can still finish in ninth position after they defeated Belgium in the Grade B semi-final in Zurich, while the Irish Ladies misery continued after falling to Sweden and now face Italy in the 7th/8th place playoff.
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