McGinley sticks to winning team

European Tour

Adopting a policy of ‘if it aint broken don’t fix it’, GB&I skipper Paul McGinley has stuck to a winning team for day 2 of the Seve Trophy.

Adopting a policy that ‘if it aint broken don’t fix it’ GB&I skipper Paul McGinley has stuck with an unchanged combination for day two of the Seve Trophy.

The Great Britain and Ireland pairings that gave his team a runaway 4-1 lead over Continental Europe on Thursday have been retained en block.

Simon Dyson and Jamie Donaldson, who beat Miguel Angel Jimenez and Pablo Larrazabal 2&1 in the opening match, again go out first, but this time take on Thomas Bjorn and Raphael Jacquelin.

Ian Poulter and Robert Rock have been moved up in the order and will look to repeat their impressive day one display – a 5&3 win over Bjorn and Alex Noren – in match two with Noren forming an all-Swedish pairing with Peter Hanson this time.

Scott Jamieson and Ross Fisher – 6&4 winners over Hanson and Jacquelin on Thursday – face Nicolas Colsaerts and Matteo Manassero, while Lee Westwood and Mark Foster will have a chance to avenge their lone first day defeat to Anders Hansen and Francesco Molinari.

Darren Clarke and Dave Horsey anchor Europe and, after beating Bjorn and Noren by one hole, they’ll hope to see off the all-Spanish pairing of Miguel Angel Jimenez and Pablo Larrazabal.

McGinley’s decision to send out the same five pairings comes as no surprise after his post-round comments on Thursday.

The Irishman said: “if you look at my pairings today, you’ll see that every pairing had a mixture of experience and somebody coming through.

“So really basically you take the five players off the World Rankings that qualified for the team and I paired each of them with one off The Race to Dubai and tried to make it as simple as possible that way so every group had experience.

“I think that was best illustrated coming down the 18th hole in that last game as you saw where David Horsey missed the green on the right-hand side. But Darren who has been there so many times before, knew that he didn’t need to be a hero. It was about hitting it in the middle of the green, which is what he did.

“So that’s a perfect illustration of why those pairings are what they are.”

Van de Velde’s day two line-up does show changes as he looks to find a way back into the match although he hasn’t tinkered too much.

Three pairings remain the same – Colsaerts/Manassero, Hansen/Molinari and Jimenez/Larrazabal – but he’s hoping that Noren will have more luck with his fellow Swede Hanson than he did with Dane Bjorn while the Dane will be hoping to shine alongside local man Jacquelin.

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