GOLF: Ireland's hopes of winning their first Men's Amateur Home International title for 11 years were scuppered in the sunshine at Royal St David's, Harlech, yesterday when losing to Wales 8½ to 6½ in a contest even closer than the scoreline suggests.

They will today face England - beaten 10-5 by Scotland - in a bid to avoid the wooden spoon.

The foursomes were shared on the second day which meant it was all to play for in the afternoon singles, although Wales felt they should have gone in at lunch with a slender advantage, their Champion David Price missing a putt of four feet on the home green to allow Noel Fox and Andrew McCormick to secure a half point with him and Lee Harpin.

From the start after lunch Ireland were under pressure but for periods it looked as though the honours might well be even. The experienced Ken Kearney playing at the top of the order found Walker Cup man Nigel Edwards too hot to handle and went down by 5 and 4.

Edwards has been awesome during this championship and had eleven pars and three birdies in his clear cut success. Athlone's Colm Moriarty, the South of Ireland champion, who has enjoyed a magnificent season, was neck and neck for most of the way against Lee Harpin and the match ended in a half.

Then the Irish got their first singles win on the board when Justin Kehoe edged home against Alex Smith. For much of the time Kehoe was two up but he lost the 17th to a birdie three to be taken down the short final hole.

There he rammed in a 40 footer for a birdie two and victory, having gone around in level par 69.

Portmarnock's Noel Fox was never in front against Welsh champion David Price and went down 3 and 2 and then came one of the most crucial matches in the entire tie - that between Gareth Maybin and Stuart Manley.

Maybin opened up a three hole lead by the seventh and seemed to be going great guns but Manley proceeded to pick up three consecutive birdies to level matters.

Then after seven successive halves, they came to the last all square. There Maybin pushed his tee shot well wide of the green and could not prevent Manley from winning the hole and the match with a par three.

Darren Crowe went down 3 and 2 to Gareth Wright and then came another important moment but Padraig Dooley narrowly failed to get anything from his match with James Williams. A brilliant birdie three by Williams at the 354 yard 16th gave the Welshman the lead and he held on bravely over the tense last two holes for a final green success.

There were victories for Sean McTernan and Andrew McCormick and a half for Stuart Paul but those achievements towards the bottom of the order were too little too late.