By Paddy Murphy NPC
The team played in an exemplary manner and were excellent ambassadors for the WBU and Welsh bridge. It was a pleasure and an honour to be their captain.
We did not have the best of luck in most of the matches
We had what some external pundits might have considered a relatively easy first two matches however the opponents played exceptionally well (more later) and made few mistakes. The third match was similar against tougher opposition but our moment of glory was a very narrow defeat of the winners of the event, England, in match 4. Our final match found the Irish team in aggressive bidding mood and everything they tried seemed to work, whilst our attempts to recover ground didn’t
My theory on the performance of the, Irish, NI, and Scottish teams is that they may have been better prepared than we were. I think the levels of online bridge “of a high standard” in Ireland, NI and Scotland are very high and the experience gained by the players in these competitions may have been their edge.
Possibly we need to embrace the online game more, and need to offer top class events and attract top rated opponents to improve our chances. Fatigue is a huge factor in these games and we need to practice and develop techniques to overcome this and to adopt strategies to conserve energy whilst playing and rest whilst dummy/between matches. I feel the online game is here to stay and I know our players are working hard to get experience.
