Curling championship evenly poised after Team Smith’s win
VICTORY for Kyle Smith’s rink in a tense encounter with previously unbeaten Team Hardie left the men’s competition tantalisingly poised at the halfway stage at the National Curling Championships in Perth.
The scoring sequence was almost a throwback to the days before the free guard rule was introduced, forcing teams to keep more shorts in play at the start of ends and so providing increased opportunities for aggressive play, no more than a single shot was registered in any of the 10 ends.
Grant Hardie looked to have gained the upper hand over the local team with a steal at the fourth to edge ahead, the teams having exchanged shots at the opening two ends.
However, Team Smith have already proved their battle hardness this season when winning a tournament in Canada before going on to become the first Scots to contest a final at one of the prestigious Grand Slam events and after three blanked ends they levelled at the eighth before stealing at the final end to move level with their opponents at the top of the standings.
They were joined by Tom Brewster’s defending champions when they, too, claimed a fourth win in their first five matches but only after being taken to an extra end by Ross Whyte’s youngsters.
Having put themselves under pressure with two early defeats in the round-robin stages, Dave Murdoch’s Olympic silver medallists made a statement against Bruce Mouat’s World Junior champions when they stamped their authority on the match with a four at the second end and followed that up by stealing three at the next on their way to a 9-2 win in just six ends.
What made that all the more remarkable was that it was a first ‘normal time’ defeat for Mouat this month since he led his team unbeaten through the World University Games a fortnight ago and his only previous defeat at the Nationals had been an extra end loss to Brewster.
With Murdoch and Mouat on three wins apiece the men’s contest almost looked to have split SPFL style with half the teams boasting winning records, the other five having lost more than they had won and the play-off places consequently looking set to be decided between the four British Curling supported skips and Hardie.
That meant that, after three days of play, the only unbeaten rink was, rather predictably, women’s number five ranked Team Muirhead who could hardly have made life easier for themselves yesterday.
Knowing they had only one match to play, they caught Team MacDonald napping to score six at the first end, setting up a 9-2 win in seven ends to leave them with three wins from three matches.
With Team Smith, the only other women to have come through the first day unbeaten, on a bye in the third round of matches in the seven team contest, that left the favourites out in front and they were confirmed in clear outright first place in the standings when they were done favours by both the Aitken sisters.
The older of them, Gina, who won the Scottish Mixed Doubles title for the fourth time in five years in partnership with Bruce Mouat earlier this season, inflicted a first defeat of the week on Smith’s rink, picking up shots at each of the first five ends to lead 6-0 and go on to a 9-3 win, while Karina saw leads of 6-3 and 8-6 clawed back by Team Fleming before they scored three at the extra end to claim their first win of the week.