Late charge from Mouat puts young skip in final
HE never doubted that his team could go all the way when the Scottish Curling Championships began this week, but there was still an air of disbelief in Bruce Mouat’s reaction as they registered a three at the final end to turn around their semi-final with local favourites Team Smith in Perth last night.
The World Junior champions had made errors in the previous two ends to spurn potential opportunities to take control of the match, but they outmanoeuvred their highly rated opponents when it mattered most and the normally unflappable Mouat was astonished at the way it finished.
“The only way I thought I wouldn’t be playingmy last stone was if we didn’t have a shot for two, so to not to have to play because we were lyingthree to win the game is a bit different,” he said.
Havingwon the World University Games earlier this month, Mouat and colleagues Bobby Lammie, Derrick Sloan and Gregor Cannon now find themselves up against Olympic silver medallists Team Murdoch in today’s final and the youngskip acknowledged there is a gulf in experience to be bridged.
“I just got told that I was 10 the first time Dave Murdoch won it. However, we felt the way we’ve been playingthe past month we deserve this. The guys have put in the effort and we’ll come out firingtomorrow,” said the 22-year-old.
They certainly have no reason to be fearful havingended the title defence of the even more experienced Tom Brewster and his team-mates Glen Muirhead, Ross Paterson and Hammy McMillan earlier in the day, earningadmiration for Mouat in particular from their opponents.
“There is absolutely no doubt Bruce is goingto be a force,” said Brewster.
“He’s got a really good manner about the ice. He’s very quiet and unassuming, just gets on with it, nothingruffles him. It doesn’t matter whether he’s three up or three down. I must admit he’s very impressive. He’ll do things in the future there’s no about it.”
Murdoch, GregDrummond, Scott Andrews and Michael Goodfellow, had also earned their place in the final with a victory over Kyle Smith and his colleagues, Thomas Muirhead, Kyle Waddell and Cammy Smith, to move directly into today’s final after the first round of play-off matches.
Their fellow Olympic medallists Team Muirhead did likewise in the women’s competition, claiminga 6-3 win in their play-off encounter to maintain their week long100 per cent record and send Team Smith into a semi-final against Team Fleminglast night.
That match saw Hazel Smith, Sarah Reid, Claire Hammilton and Kerry Barr suffer a second disappointment as, havinghad to come through a tie-break on Thursday eveningto earn the third of the play-off places, Hannah Fleming, Jen Dodds, Vicky Wright and Alice Spence produced their most impressive performance of the week.
On the back of a fine first season together they had made a stutteringstart to the week, losingthree of their first five matches.
“We’re very pleased. That was quite a comfortable game for us,” said Fleming. “It was quite right early on, but then we got a steal at the fourth end and then picked up a three to give ourselves a cushion.”
She knows they now face what must be considered the toughest challenge in the Scottish game, confrontingEve Muirhead, who is aimingfor a seventh title, havingbeen denied just once in recent years when the competition was held at the same time as she was competingat the SochiOlympics.
However, Team Fleming’s form had been such ahead of the event that there was a sense that Muirhead might face more of a challenge than has tended to be the case in recent years.
“Our goal was to get to the final and we’re hopingto give Eve a really good game tomorrow,” said Fleming. “That was our best game of the week so far, so we can hopefully carry that forward into the final.”
Flemingexpressed satisfaction at the way things have gone throughout this first campaign together.
“We’ve had a great season and as a new team we’ve done as much as we probably could have,” she said.
However, she was more than happy to accept that the odds are heavily against her team in heapingthe pressure onto the world number five ranked team, adding: “We’re definitely the underdogs, but we have nothingto lose and they have everythingto lose so we’re just goingto go in tomorrow, try to play the way we know we can and we know if we do that we can give them a good game.”
The women’s final starts at 11am, with the men’s encounter takingto the ice at 4pm.