Play-off success forRoss
ST PATRICK’S FP ......................................... 7 DOUNE CASTLE ......................................... 0
Doune Castle’s Scottish Amateur Cup hopes ended spectacularly on Saturday at Dumbarton when they struggled to cope with an impressive St Pat’s.
St Pat’s took a 1-0 lead after 12 minutes when poor marking allowed the home winger to rifle a low drive into the far corner from 16 yards.
Doune conceded a controversial second goal on 28 minutes. With the defence anticipating a free kick the referee allowed play to continue and the St Pat’s centre took full advantage, curling a perfectly-placed shot beyond Callum Haig for 2-0.
With half-time beckoning, the home side all but sealed the match with a third goal. Slack marking saw forward direct a simple header wide of Haig for 3-0.
Doune switched formation at the break and enjoyed better possession in the opening minutes of the second half but St Pat’s weathered the pressure and struck with devastating effect in 55 minutes when a surging run down the left and a simple finish made it 4-0.
It was no surprise when St Pat’s made it 5-0 after 65 minutes.
To their credit, Doune battled on and enjoyed a short period of pressure, without really troubling a well-marshalled home backline.
St Pat’s again finished in clinical fashion after 83 minutes when the home striker beat Haig with an impertinent lob from all of 25 yards for 6-0. Deep in added time, Doune’s miserable day ended when they conceded another long-range effort, the ball flying past Haig for 7-0.
Doune Castle: Haig, Meldrum, Duncanson, Coubrough, McClymont, Gibson (A Innes), Hurst (Macfarlane), D Innes (Mann), Macdonald (Wilbert), Duszynski (Deacon) Ross Paterson will lead the Scottish men’s challenge at next month’s Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships in Helsingborg .
His rink completed a fine play-off campaign which saw them get the better of reigning European champions Team Mouat before beating Glen Muirhead’s team, who represented Great Britain at last year’s Winter Olympics in the three match final.
The three teams - who train at the National Curling Academy at the PEAK, faced each other at Perth last weekend with Mouat’s rink knocked out in the roundrobin qualifying stages.
The best-of-three final went the distance. Paterson won the opener 7-5 before Muirhead responded by claiming a 7-3 victory and the decider went to an extra end where a nose hit double with his final delivery earned Paterson another 7-5 win.
“I’m delighted and very proud,” the victorious skip said afterwards.
“I felt we were the best team here this week with our performances. What’s most pleasing is that we had a job to do this week to get over the line and we’re now going to the Europeans which was our first main goal of this season.”
Joining Ross in Sweden will be Olympic silver medallist and Stirling-born Michael Goodfellow plus Kyle Waddell and Duncan Menzies.