Pierce Purcell V Foxrock result

Jim Wood & John Burke’s Pierce Purcell team were out this evening (18thMay) playing Foxrock in the second round of the competition.

The team saw just one change from the team that beat Hermitage convincingly less than two weeks ago in the first round with Colm Drew & Dermot Barry coming in for Gavan Campbell & Rod O’Shea.

Due to the vagaries off the GI Draw we had, once again, three matches away from home this evening so securing a win wasn’t going to be easy.

First out at home were Anthony Byrne & Neil Lawless who won the first and fifth to be one up, having lost the third, however this lead was reversed with Foxrock winning the sixth and seventh holes. The eighth & ninth were swapped and the match turned with the visitors one up.

Just behind them Andrew Nolan & Gary O’Connor, coming off the back of their excellent 6&5 victory in the Hermitage match, found themselves one down through eight but were playing well. They won the ninth to square the match and followed this up with wins on the tenth, eleventh and twelfth to go three up.

Meanwhile, in Foxrock Colm Drew & Dermot Barry led the Greystones charge but losses on the fifth & sixth saw them two down, but with a long way to go of course. Unfortunately Foxrock also won the next two and after a half on the ninth the match went to the tenth tee with Foxrock four up.

Robert Clarke & Michael Keating won the second to go one up but lost the third, fourth, sixth and eight to find themselves three down after eight holes. A win on nine steadied the ship, but only briefly unfortunately. Three further losses in succession on the tenth, eleventh and twelfth were the lads undoing and the match ended on the fifteenth 4&3 for Foxrock.

Our anchor pair of Stephen O’Brien & Shane Power took up where they had left off when they last played together and were four up through seven, lost eight but bounced back straight away with a win on nine to be four up at the halfway point.