This article is from page 73 of the 2007-09-18 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 73 JPG
WOODSTOCK’S hopes of All-Ire- land glory perished in Belfast on Thursday afternoon as they bowed out of the Pierce Purcell Shield at the semi-final stage to a crack Warren- point side.
The semi-final clash was played in Shandon Park, just outside Belfast, but the local knowledge of the War- renpoint club from nearby Down was crucial in driving them to a compre- hensive 4-1.
Woodstock failed to win any of the five matches in the foursomes competition. Indeed, the semi-final bid of the 2002 champions started on the worst possible note when the lead pairing of Michael Kelly and Stephen Spencer went down by 6 and 4 to S Sands and D Flanagan.
Woodstock then gave themselves some hope for the remainder of the tie when Jimmy Kelly and Jason Dor- mer played out a halved match with S Colgan and P Devlin. They were one up with five to play, but then found themselves one down with three to play. However, they battled back to Neu kommer DEe
Match three then became a cru- cial rubber for Woodstock, but the
pairing of Noel Dinan and Liam O’Connor bowed out after putting up a brave battle against N Devine and A Campbell. They were four down after five but battled back to be only one hole adrift by the 16th. However, Devine and Campbell held firm and closed out the match on the 18th to win by two holes.
It meant that Martin Nolan and Michael O’Brien had to win their match — they made a bold bid but had to be content with a half. It was the all-important half-point for Warren- point that put them through to a fi- nal meeting with Donabate who beat Bearna in the other semi-final.
The final match out on the course also went Warrenpoint’s way with M Redmond and M McGivern beating Tony Lawlor and James McMahon by 3 and 1.