Ireland in second at Wellington

Two double clear rounds in the warm evening air of Florida helped Ireland to a second place in its first Nations Cup of the year in Wellington last night.

Sat, 10 Mar, 2007 - 14:18

Two double clear rounds in the warm evening air of Florida helped Ireland to a second place in its first Nations Cup of the year in Wellington last night.

With Canada winning on just one time fault, Ireland's tally of four faults was more than enough to trounce the host team, who racked up 12 penalties during the two rounds of the six-nation competition.

The stand-out performances on the Irish squad came from US-based Darragh Kerins on Orlando and Co Meath's Cian O'Connor with Irish Independent Echo Beach, both of whom delivered two fault-free rounds.

Meanwhile Malahide-based Conor Swail was unlucky to have a single fence down in the first round with Mr President.

Ireland's discard score came from Jonathan McCrea, who had nine faults first time out on Costa, and 13 after the break.

Afterwards, Irish Chef d'Equipe Robert Splaine praised the performance of his squad, and added: "To do well means an awful lot to us in Ireland. It’s a great honor for us to be here and to do well

here is just very, very important to us.

"Our team ambition is to go to the Olympics, but we also have an ambition to re-qualify for the

Samsung Super League.

"Wellington is on that list of shows, being a five star, where you get points towards that. Being second is very good for us.

"I want to congratulate the Canadians and thank the US for hosting such a wonderful event."

SHOW JUMPING RESULTS: CSIO5* WELLINGTON FLORIDA USA 7-11 MARCH 2007

Nations' Cup CSIO 5

Presented by CN

Friday, March 9, 2007

1) Canada 1

2) Ireland 4

Mr. President; Conor Swail 4/0