The second day’s fourballs were finely poised at the Vivendi Seve Trophy as Continental Europe looked to mount a fightback.
Jean Van de Velde’s side were 4-1 behind after the opening fourballs, but opposing Captain Paul McGinley had warned Great Britain & Ireland against complacency.
Swedish pair Peter Hanson and Alex Noren had certainly raised their game as they stormed four up after five holes against Ian Poulter and Robert Rock.
Rock and Hanson both birdied the first, but Noren won the second with a birdie before Hanson took the par three third with a two.
Noren won the next two with pars, although Rock’s birdie at the sixth reduced the deficit to three.
In the top game Simon Dyson and Jamie Donaldson were on course for a second victory together – the Welshman birdieing the fifth and sixth to put them two up on Thomas Björn and Raphaël Jacquelin.
Matteo Manassero, who found the going tough on his debut appearance on Thursday, won two of the first three holes to go one up with Nicolas Colsaerts against the opening day’s biggest winners Ross Fisher and Scott Jamieson.
Continental Europe’s only first-day point came from Francesco Molinari and Anders Hansen, and their rematch with Lee Westwood and Mark Foster remained all square through five holes.
The last game was also all square – Pablo Larrazabal winning the fourth to restore parity for himself and compatriot Miguel Angel Jiménez against Open Champion Darren Clarke and England’s David Horsey – who had won the third with a birdie.
Colsaerts won the sixth to go two up and looked like extending that lead further when the big-hitting Belgian birdied the eighth from 30 feet.
But rookie Jamieson chipped in to halve the hole and keep Great Britain & Ireland within touching distance.
Westwood played a remarkable approach on the eighth – having hit his drive under a tree with low hanging branches, he played the sort of shot Ballesteros himself would have been proud of to run the ball up onto the green and within six feet of the flag.
The resulting birdie put him and Foster one up, a lead the World Number Two doubled with a ten foot birdie putt at the next.
However, the bottom game had swung Continental Europe’s way as Jiménez won the seventh with a birdie four.
