Faldo team confound critics with emphatic trophy win

Nick Faldo's Britain and Ireland team, stung into action by television pundits predicting doom and gloom, ran away with the Seve Trophy at The Heritage near Dublin. One point ahead entering the 10 concluding singles, Continental Europe took only one of them, halved just two and were sent crashing to a 16.5 to 11.5 defeat – the fourth in a row.

And one lesson Faldo will have learnt in advance of leading Europe in the Ryder Cup next September is that for inspiration nothing works better than people outside the camp saying they are going to lose.

Paul Casey, left out on Saturday afternoon so he could work on his game, said he was watching as his fellow European Tour player Jamie Spence and the golf coach Simon Holmes, discussing the match on Sky TV, predicted wins for Seve Ballesteros' side in the top three singles.

That meant Colin Montgomerie losing to Robert Karlsson, Casey going down to Raphaël Jacquelin and Marc Warren being beaten by Grégory Havret. Instead, all three stormed to victories and set the pattern for a landslide.

"That was nice bit of motivation right there," said Casey after his three and two win. "I was already motivated, but that added the final edge."

The Surrey golfer made a point of telling Montgomerie about it on the driving range before the session and Europe's eight-time No 1, never beaten in singles in eight Ryder Cup appearances, added: "That geed us up a bit. You forget that Paul's the reigning World Match Play champion and my record in match play is not all bad."

The unbeaten debutant Phillip Archer had the distinction of securing victory by halving his match with the Austrian Markus Brier.