Irish look doomed after Welsh defeat

IRELAND face a herculean task today if they are to avoid the wooden spoon in the ladies amateur home international championship at Dundalk.

Following defeat by Scotland on Wednesday they went down to Wales yesterday and now must beat England today and then hope that the other match goes their way.

Captain Sheena O'Brien-Kenney knows that it will be tough.

"England are very talented but we will give it our best shot."

The Irish made a good start to yesterday's proceedings taking the foursomes 2-1 but the Welsh whose only victory in this international championship came in 1999 gave an inspired afternoon display to win four and halve one of the six singles for an overall 5.5-3.5 success.

And O'Brien-Kenney's team can have no grumbles about the result as Wales picked up their points with something to spare.

Tricia Mangan, the Irish champion from Ennis found the Curtis Cup player Sarah Jones too hot to handle and crashed to a 4&3 defeat after never really getting into the game.

Deirdre Smith, Maria Dunne and Heather Nolan all went the same way as Mangan with the only point for Ireland was gained by Beaverstown's Martina Gillen at the bottom of the order as she edged to a 3 and 1 verdict against Lucy Gould.