Tri-nation junior international 2004 - Dublin

Report by Scottish Under 16 captain Robbie Coleman

The inaugural U16s Trinations competition was, from a Scottish point of view, an unmitigated success. Much of our team was part of the victorious U14s side from Irvine in 2003 and we carried forward our winning ways to Dublin this year.
The weekend was beneficial not just from a chess aspect, as the socialising between Scottish players as well as with players from different nations was also very worthwhile.
In particular the free day on Friday provided excellent time to acclimatise to Ireland and get to know ones team-mates. In this case the cloud of having to get up at half five in the morning had a very thick silver lining.
The first round’s chess on Saturday morning was against a Welsh side graded slightly below us on average. The major exception to this rule was Welsh top board Ioan Rees who had a grade of nearly 2300.
In saying that our top board Chris Macdonald had beaten Ioan at the Glorney Cup earlier in the year so it was not impossible. Here, however, the Welshman edged Chris our as he was nearing a flag fall. Further down the team Ivan Stokes won solidly before I won with three seconds remaining on my (analogue!) clock. On board four Hugh did well to spot a rook sacrifice leading to a forced mate. On five Tony Anderson clawed his way back after blundering a couple of pawns. He was clearly winning when his opponents flag fell. David Oswald ground out a win on board six as his endgame technique proved the difference.
Round two followed only an hour later and was the toughest of the competition against a strong Irish team. Several players from both teams were tired after long games in round one so played drawisly (Word underlines this and suggests “drowsily” - this also applies). Boards one and three were drawn within just over an hour, four shortly after. The first decisive result came on board five and was unfortunately in Ireland’s favour. This left the score at 1.5-2.5 in Irelands favour with two to play. Ireland looked in complete control. Ivan was by his own admission “going to lose” on two while David looked worse in an endgame. Imagine my delighted astonishment when, after returning form a short trip back to our flat, I discovered the match had been halved three all. Ivan, it transpired, had found a winning rook sac a move after having a draw offer turned down while David had won a pawn back and grovelled a draw.
All this meant that the result was very finely poised going into the final round against Ireland ‘B’. After finding out the well-hidden tie break rules we discovered that we needed a point more than Ireland ‘A’ achieved in the final round. We got off to a good start as I won my game reasonably quickly. Once Hugh and Tony had also racked up points we looked to be in pole position. On top of this Wales had already taken a point and a half from the Irish. Things took a turn for the worse when David lost after never really getting into the game.
When Chris won, so did another Welshman so Ivan needed only a draw for the overall win. He decided he was better however so the full point did as well, saving the arbiter implementing a tie-break (which, for the record, we would have won).

Report by Scottish Under 14 Captain Andrew Green

On Friday 3 September a tired U/16, U/14 and U/12 squad left for the University of Dublin at 6.00 in the morning. We arrived in Ireland at about 9.00am and chose who we would be sharing with. When we went to our rooms we got a pleasant surprise because the rooms were nice ! As we had the whole day to muck about we decided to do what anyone wants to do - play football. Norrie Matheson was the referee and made some very dubious decisions, I have to say. A tired squad then decided it was time to get some rest and in doing so found the lounge with a stainless steel kitchen and some lovely seats. Later on we decided to try and use our stainless steel kitchen and we made dinner. Myself and Connor Woods made a beautiful curry while Natalie Donohue, Ian Nisbet and Chris Macdonald made burgers and chips for everyone else.
After dinner we decided that we should go play football again only to find the Welsh playing football in our pitch. There was only one thing to do - challenge the Welsh at football. We trounced the Welsh 10-5. Notable performances were Ian Nisbet's hacking skills, David Oswald's defensive skills, Ivan Stokes running at the speed of light, Hugh Brechin's left foot and of course my hat-trick. After the tiring football we went for a meeting with Donna who gave us the speech me Ivan Chris Amy and Rhian had heard before at the Glorney Cup but interestingly this version had been edited. Also the captains were chosen and I was selected as captain of the under 14 squad convincingly. After the meeting players were given a curfew of 11.00 which someone pointed out that no one had said in the morning or at night. As we are good we went to bed at 11.00 as we were so tired from trouncing Wales 10-5.

The next day we had an early start. We got our breakfast and went straight into the playing hall to play Wales. The Welsh team didn't look as strong as I thought it would be and we ended up winning 5-3. Later on that day we were playing Ireland A and we knew this was going to be the most important game. After especially long games the squad ended up drawing 4-4 with a very honourable draw from Ian Nisbet who agreed a draw when he could have just timed his opponent. After a pleasing result the team looked at our games with the amazing coach Chris Macdonald. That night basketball and ten pin bowling were arranged so the Scottish squad just played blitz and mucked about till then. We arrived at the venue for ten pin bowling and not very surprisingly we were all pretty bad at bowling - especially Blair Hawthorne who proudly defended his title as the worst bowler ever. After the bowling the players went to play basketball but we ditched it for football outside. Scotland vs. Ireland was a very close match but we ended up winning after Calum McQueen sneakily tricked the Irish into thinking he was Irish and becoming the goalie this meant we got 3 goals and won 9-6.

When we arrived back at the university the Under 16s and Under 14s mixed together for a little party in the lounge. Unfortunately the under 12s had to go to bed. Blair Hawthorne had brought his laptop and provided us with great entertainment with his videos on the office linebacker who smashed people in the office for being bad. Soon the party was over and we went to bed in a happy mood.

We woke up in the morning realising it was already Sunday. We were determined to do our best. We had our breakfast and then went into the playing hall. We had to beat Ireland B convincingly and it was in this match I was going to have to make hard decisions as captain. It was very close. I finished quickly and was in the playing hall observing the games and in the last 10 mins or so I was asked by several players in the squad if they could take a draw. I added up the points looked at all the other games talked to Donna and I told them yes or to play on a little bit longer. In the end we won 6-2 which meant we had won the competition !! We happily went up in prizegiving and got our gold medals.

Later on that day before we went to the airport. We were told there was going to be prizes given by Chess Scotland to the best people in the teams. Our star player Amy Officer deservingly got the under 14 prize and I got the Man of the Trinations for my excellent leadership supposedly. I know that the players had a great time and learnt a lot especially from the other federations - for example the Irish get coaching to everyone but also coaching to their top players. Hopefully Chess Scotland can learn from this and steal these ideas. I would like to thank Norrie, Maureen and Alex for their help and advice and of course Donna for being a great manager.

sincerely
Captain Andrew Green

Report by Scottish Under 12 Captain Connor Woods

Dublin City University campus was the venue for my second International Team cap.

An early flight from Glasgow meant that some of the squad had lots of time to get used to our accommodation which was only recently refurbished and lots of it was brand new.

I was sharing with my friend Blair Hawthorne from Aberdeen who I had shared with at last year's tri-nations and also at the Primary Individual Championships, Blair was playing in the under 14's team.

After taking the day to settle in, playing some football and cooking the best curry ever with Andrew Green (we decided to avoid the oven chips that were cooked in the microwave..) we had a team meeting to prepare for the next day's games.

The biggest honour I have received ever was being selected to captain the Under 12's team, this was decided by the votes of my fellow team members and it meant a great deal to me.

We started the following day against Wales who unfortunately didn't have a full team so this meant that Ruiridh (Milne) and Craig (Petrie) had to gain byes for their first international matches. We also had Matthew (O'Donnell) feeling really sick from the night before. (maybe it was the chips????). The team played well with wins for the top 5 boards and the 2 points for the byes meant we had won 7-1.

We then had a bit of a disaster against the Ireland A team losing on all 5 top boards but it has to be said that we were heavilly outgraded on all boards and we have to take this into consideration, as team captain though I was really disappointed at losing my own game but was really impressed by the victories of Jonathan Edwards and Craig Petrie who fought really hard to get our 2 points on the board, this was their Scotland debuts and they did our team proud.

At our team meeting on the Saturday night we were told to go and win every game against Ireland B and that is exacly what we did winning 8-0, once again credit to our team for doing everything we could, but unfortunately it wasn't enough with Ireland A winning convincingly against Wales. I tried my best to live up to my role as captain by encouraging the rest of my team, and in giving guidance to those playing for their country for the first time, as this was my first time as captain also, I hope I didn't let my team down.

I would like to thank Donna for her managerial skills, Mr and Mrs Mathie for being as welcoming and friendly as ever, Mr McFarlane for coming on as a late sub at football and allowing my team to score so many goals, to my mum and dad for letting me go but most of all to my team-mates for making me their captain, we're going to win next time......

Connor