It was a case of déjà vu all over again for the Irish teams in the junior home internationals in Newport over the weekend. As has been the case in recent years, both our Junior Camrose (Under-26) and Peggy Bayer (Under-21) teams performed well, winning the majority of their matches (several of them by the maximum score of 20/0), only to finish a distant second behind England in the Under-26s and a distant third behind the two English teams in the Under-21s. England, with its depth of resources in terms of both players and training methods, has dominated these events for many years. The last time they failed to complete the double was in 2020, when Scotland won the Junior Camrose, and the last time they failed to win the Peggy Bayer was when Ireland won it in 2016.
Our two squads, the majority of whom played all the boards over the weekend as we had teams of five and four respectively, played very well and gave an excellent account of themselves. So full credit to Matthew O’Farrell & Luca Crone; Isabel Burke, Leah Finnegan, and Denise Walsh, who played as a triumvirate as Leah could not take all the necessary time off work; Bence Orosz & David Hoyne; and Eve Connell & our NIBU guest player Marc Campbell, who only had time for a couple of brief practice sessions before the weekend. Thanks also to our NPCs Martin Brady (U-26) and Margaret Murphy (U-21), and to the Welsh bridge Union for organising an excellent event played in a very sporting spirit.
Group picture (l-to-r) Martin Brady, Matthew O’Farrell, Leah Finnegan, Denise Walsh, Luca Crone, Margaret Murphy, David Hoyne, Marc Campbell, Isabel Burke, Eve Connell; Peggy Bayer team (l-to-r) David Hoyne, Bence Orosz, Margaret Murphy, Marc Campbell, Eve Connell