GOLF: Shandon Park GC have retained the European Club Championship at Parco De Medici Golf Club in Rome with an eight-shot victory over Clube de Golfe de Vilamoura. They are the first Irish club to win the trophy twice, with Limerick being the only other Irish winners in 1980 at Santa Ponsa.
Irish Youths International Alastair McKinley capped a fine individual performance to finish joint fourth overall with a final round of 70, one under par, and the best round of the day for the Belfast Club.
Despite battling with his putter throughout the last day, British Amateur champion Michael Hoey took the individual honours with a birdie at the last hole for a six-under-par score of 278. Philip Purdy shot a 72 on the final day, to add to his 68 in the second round, to complete a superb team performance.
Mallow GC also qualified for this event as winners of the Senior Cup in 2001. Mallow finished in 10th place after a good start over the first two rounds, but slipped away over the last two days.
David Finn completed the four rounds in three over par for joint 11th place, while Tim O'Mahony, who holed the winning putt for Mallow in the Senior Cup final against Portmarnock, open with a 71, but failed to do better over the other 3 rounds.
GOLF: Joe McDermott was the only one of five Irish challengers to secure his card for the European Seniors Tour after firing a final round 70 in Portugal yesterday. American Steve Stull set a record winning margin when he romped to victory at the tour school by 10 shots.
Stull, a 50-year-old from Richland, Washington, shot four birdies over the closing six holes to post a three-under-par round of 68, finishing at 19-under-par, well clear of compatriot Gary Wintz and Chile's Guillermo Encina.
Winz carded a final round 67 to share second with Encina, who returned a 68, while Scotland's John Chillas also fired a 68 to secure fourth spot.
McDermott finished in a share of fifth place on four-under with South African John Mashego.
The remaining two cards for the 2002 Seniors Tour went to Australian Brian Jones and American David Ojala, who beat Ian Richardson of England and Japan's Dragon Taki in a sudden-death play-off. All four players tied for seventh place at three-under-par.
SNOOKER: Joe Perry reached the first ranking tournament semi-final of his 10-year career by defeating crowd favourite Jimmy White 5-3 in the last eight of the £250,000 sterling European Open in Valletta, Malta yesterday.
Perry, the world number 27 from Chatteris, admitted to an attack of nerves as the winning line approached but held himself together to bring White's recent resurgence to an end.
"I was very nervous at the end," Perry said. "I've been really relaxed all week but whether it was playing Jimmy or competing for a semi-final place, I was under pressure out there.
"I've become a lot more professional off the table, which has made a difference."
White, who has not won a ranking title since he triumphed at the 1992 UK Championship, won the fifth frame on the blue to draw level at 3-3.
But he failed to pot a ball in the next frame and lost the match when he missed the blue in the eighth.
RUGBY: At the death it was a toss-up between which was more grim - the weather or the rugby - but it mattered little to Leinster, who strangled the life out of Ulster to clinch the Interprovincial title at Pirrie Park in Belfast 9-0 on Wednesday.
As both sides had recorded narrow victories over Munster Schools, there had been pre-match expectation of an entertaining showdown, but it never materialised. With both sides struggling to impose any sort of pattern to the contest, handling errors and a high penalty count quickly became the main feature.
It was little surprise then that the match should be decided by the boot, and Leinster scrum-half David Connellan kicked three penalties - one a monster effort from the half-way line - with Ulster failing to trouble the scorers.
