The Continent of Europe have won the St Andrews Trophy over Great Britain & Ireland at Linna Golf.

The continental side trailed by seven points to five after the first of two days of matchplay in Finland.

A strong morning foursomes performance by the Continent of Europe, with wins from Sami Valimaki & Matias Honkala, Frederic Lacroix & Angel Hidalgo, and Stefano Mazzoli & Lorenzo Scalise, meant the score would be tied at eight points a piece heading into the final session of singles matches.

Great Britain & Ireland claimed the first point this afternoon after Matthew Jordan defeated Edgar Catherine 3&2. Despite the first point going to Great Britain & Ireland, the scoreboard leant heavily in favour of the Continent of Europe, who lead in seven of the eight other matches on the course.  

Fredrik Nilehn and Sami Valimaki won their matches on the 15th green, while Frederic Lacroix won his match on the 16th green.

After Lorenzo Scalise defeated Nick Poppleton with four holes still left to play, adding the Continent of Europe's fourth point to the board in the afternoon, only one more point was needed to secure the overall match. 

Additional victories by Matias Honkala, who won all four of his matches on home soil this week, Angel Hidalgo, who was three-down after five holes in his match against Todd Clements, and Stefano Mazzoli, meant the Continent of Europe would claim the trophy for the first time since 2012 and for the sixth time in the match's history.

Marc Hammer halved his match with Mitch Waite to leave the final score at Continent of Europe 15.5 - 9.5 Great Britain & Ireland.

“Never had a doubt in my mind”, Hofstetter laughed after the end of the match. "In the morning the guys came out with great fighting spirit."

“These are always very tight matches. I couldn’t be more proud of the team and how they played. Such high quality golf against a great opponent.”

Top performer, Matias Honkala said: "Wow, what a great day. My game feels good so it’s been fun to play and just enjoy. It was great to play in front of the home crowd, it definitely gave me an extra boost."

Final leaderboard: http://scores.golfbox.dk/Shared.aspx?l=http://www.ega-golf.ch/golfbox-result-widget/0&m=t&h=/competition/1655067/teamcup