Day 5

Hope Athena has managed to catch her flight… she has certainly vanished.

Being a 4 man team will ease line-up decisions, but they must play 60 boards to-day. We really need to score above average for the 4 matches. We set out with high hopes against Turkey. Board 3 is a double-figure swing in all matches bar Netherlands/Slovakia:

We come out on the wrong side of this board, then lose a game swing, followed by an optimistic slam that needs a finesse and a 2-1 break. Our luck has run out. The traditional late run comes too late, and we score just 3.12. Not nearly enough.

I calculate that we need to score at least 13 VPs per match from here on to achieve respectability. Our bye, yet to come, will give us 12 only, so it is getting tight. Our next opponents are the Czech Republic, who have just moved up to 7^th with a big win over Portugal. We have slumped to 17^th, our worst position so far. But we have a more cheerful start, winning 12 imps on a weird misdefence, and another 11 with double part score doubles. 27-0! Looking good – but the tide turns. They find a smart double, and Jun finds a weird misdefence, and we are back to all square. But Ronan and Liam bid their Grand Slam competently and we run out winners by 7 imps for 12.09.

A late lunch, then off to play Finland. A dull-ish set of boards, but we avoid sillies and chalk up a solid 27 imp win. 16.4 VP move us back into 15^th place, just .31 behind Croatia. 31.61 VP so far to-day, one match to go.

Brian Senior had a grumpy complaint in the Bulletin about having Portugal/Russia on VuGraph when there were more interesting matches involving higher-placed teams. He suggested this might be the last time he saw Portugal…. Wrong! It seems all the Under 26 teams must suffer equally, and we must face the VuGraph hoodoo one more time. I try to maintain a cheerful demeanour despite my sense of foreboding.

Watching your team on VuGraph is exhausting – you cannot help willing them to make winning bids and plays. An early slam swing out (17 imps) is worrying, but we claw it back, including a slam swing in when opponents turn down an offer of 1100 instead. (No criticism here, I would make the same dangerous bid!) We emerge, tired and grumpy, with a 1 imp win, 10.32 VP.

So we have won 3 matches, scored 41.93 on the day, and moved up to 14^th place.

Tomorrow is another 4 match day, but we have our bye in the morning, a well-earned lie-in for the team, and a guarantee of 12 VP. Then we have Israel (8^th), Estonia (22^nd) and Bulgaria (6^th). Of our 3 aims 2 look impossible: we are 18.5 VP below average, so unlikely to finish in the top half; we are 33 VP behind England, who are currently 10^th; but the third, finishing ahead of Ireland, is certainly within our grasp. They are 22 VP adrift of us, and the third pair has finally been given a match to play.

Perhaps we can win all the remaining 6 matches, mainly against teams lying above us, and come with a late run? Fingers crossed!