Aberdeen’s Tom Brewster and his team of Greg Drummond, Scott Andrews and Michael Goodfellow retained their national title when they beat Perth’s David Smith by 5-2 in the final of the Co-operative Funeralcare Scottish Curling Championships in Perth on Sunday.
This was a low-scoring game – with six blank ends – but there was plenty of high-class play.
As Page Play-off winners, the Smith team had the hammer but Brewster made the first break-through in the third end when Perth’s fourth player Warwick Smith came up short with his final draw and handed Brewster a steal of two. After three blank ends, Smith made up for his earlier mistake by playing a brave promote on his own stone to knock out two Brewster stones, score two and level the game.
Brewster took the lead again straightaway in the eighth when he played a delicate split on two front stones to nudge one of them and his own shooter in for another two. Smith was then looking for two to level again, but was forced to blank the ninth and then, in the tenth, good play by Brewster’s team left Smith with an impossible double attempt to let Brewster steal another single for the win that gave his team their second successive title and the right to represent Scotland in April’s World Men’s Championships in Basel, Switzerland.
Afterwards, Brewster emphasized how important it was for their mental state that they had won before. He said, “do you know what was easier?…I slept really well last night, as opposed to all the other finals I’ve been in. Winning last year gave us such confidence this year. We knew what we had to do, we knew how to come out and play and which shots we had to play. Even though Smith’s team don’t play a lot, they’re still good curlers”.
Speaking about taking the lead as early as the third end, he added, “it was a long game. We’ve played in a particular way this week and we had a poor start, but we kept to our game-plan. It was just a case of making sure we had the hammer down the last, or being two up, and that’s what we did”.
Highlights of the game will be broadcast on BBC 2 Scotland at 7.00pm on Wednesday 22nd, February, exactly 24 hours after the women’s highlights.
Try Curling at Curl Aberdeen, Eday Walk, Aberdeen AB15 6LN on Saturday 24th March 2012 at 10am. This is a FREE taster session and is open to everyone age 8+. For further information or to book your place contact 01224 810369.
David Edwards and John Penny in the 1v2 playoff against David Smith
Jackie Lockhart with Sarah Macintyre and Kay Adams sweeping
Top photo is by Richard Gray/ RCCC. Photos of David, John and Jackie are by Bob Cowan courtesy of Skip Cottage Curling.
