Ireland had just a shade too much class for a gritty Scotland team in a European Boys Team championship final played in atrocious conditions of non-stop rain at Gullane yesterday.
The only place not flooded in the East Lothian village must have been the links course where Ireland won the title for the first time in the 19-year history of the tournament. Ireland, winners of the boys home internationals last year and leading qualifiers for the match-play stages earlier in the week at Gullane, maintained their excellent form to the end with a 43 win over Scotland.
The Scots, three-time champions, had scrambled through the 36-hole stroke-play test as seventh of the eight qualifiers, but they raised their game collectively to topple defending champions Spain 4-3 and then edge past Italy, also 4-3, on Saturday evening.
But Ireland, who had thrashed Finland 6-1 and then lowered the colours of world junior champions England 4-3 in the semi-finals, had just that bit more talent in depth than the Scots' earlier victims.
"I'm so proud of the boys. They did it for me at Royal North Devon last year when Ireland won the home internationals for the first time, and they've come up trumps for me again here," said veteran skipper Jimmy Greene from Dublin.
Greene was true to his word in giving every one of the six members of the Irish squad a game in the matchplay stages, even though it meant bringing in Michael McDermot from Stackstown to play his first game in the singles session of the final.
"Michael did not play too well in the qualifying rounds, but I had every confidence in him and I was sure that he would do himself justice in the final. And didn't he just do that by bringing in the championship-winning point with a 2 and 1 victory."
Ireland's other vital winners of singles ties were David Jones (City of Derry) and Robin Symes (Shandon Park), both of whom won by 5 and 4.
Jones was the top Irish performer with five points out of six, closely followed by Justin Kehoe (Birr), who was the leading individual qualifier and won four games out of five.
Ireland finished the European Youths Team championship on a high note at Royal Waterloo, Belgium, yesterday when they beat Spain by 5-2 to clinch seventh place. Their hopes of a title disappeared on Friday when they lost to Sweden, and defeat by England on Saturday meant the best they could do was seventh.
Level 1-1 after the foursomes, Ireland lost the top singles match but then came good with Colm Moriarty, Tim Rice, Ricky Elliott, and Alan Murray all collecting points with something to spare. Meanwhile, the championship was won for the first time by Wales who beat Sweden 4-3 in a thrilling final. Scotland finished 4th and England 5th.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)