ANDY BEAL posted a leaderboard-topping 69 in the West of Ireland Open yesterday, then urged his favourite football team - Southampton - to keep up the good work over the weekend.

The Salisbury golfer follows Saints with a passion born when his dad used to take him along to The Dell.

Now he has to follow his favourites from various parts of Europe when he is playing on the Volvo Tour and he'll be hoping for a curtain-raising victory at Derby County today.

Beal certainly looked in good nick as he moved to eight under par at the halfway stage of the Irish event at the Slieve Russell Golf and Country Club.

He showed no signs of a troublesome neck injury as he hit back from bogies at his first and second holes to play the rest of the County Cavan course in five under.

Beal shared the top of the leaderboard with Ireland's Gary Murphy and Garry Houston of Wales. Steve Richardson (Lee-on-Solent) had the leaders in sight at three under but another Salisbury hope, Gary Emerson, slipped back from five under overnight to two under.

Another Hampshire player, Justin Rose, gave himself a fighting chance of beating the cut with a two-under-par round of 70 for a level par halfway total, one better than Stoneham's Richard Bland who still had over half his second round to play.

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