A big lesson for TEAM HIBERNIA and a column for Mr Comyn

After 9 boards of the Round 5 match against team TOP ONE in the European Open Bridge championships TEAM HIBERNIA one of the Irish Ladies teams had eked out a comfortable 19-1 imps lead and were looking good to close with nice victory.
Board 20 pictured above was placed on the table

5 clubs looks a reasonable contract and of course 3NT if one could bid that after a 3S opening looks iron clad. Nobody in the Ladies found or was allowed play 3NT .. A couple of intrepid souls in the Open Teams bid 3NT and several made 5C.

However our HIBERNIA WEST ended up declaring in 4S doubled and got smacked for 800.
I personally cannot figure how one gets into 4S as surely the most one could open with the WEST
hand would be 3S ....and even that is a stretch for a disciplined player. I think most will open 3S but its kind of a trick short in reality when you are vulnerable. So I will have to wait to hear the story.

Meanwhile in the other Ladies match our team of CASADOMA having stuck their heads over the precipice ran into some heavy fire and were trialing 46-0 as board 20 hit the table.
They came out the better of it ...with their opponents declaring 3S down 2 in one room and 4H on the 6 nil break in the other room .. CASADOMA collected 4 undertricks for 9 imps and a VP saved on the score.
Meanwhile the MORAN team also struggled on the same board 20 ,,,MORAN declared 4H against the 6-0 break on the NS side and declared 4S amazingly undoubled on the EW side.

All because of a hand that GALLIGAN would certainly ponder reducing to a weak 2 spade opening or a PASS. Its just not enough for a 3S opener no matter how big your chest is or how big you want to puff it out.