Scotland's men glide to double victory while women slip up

Published on Saturday 5 December 2009 20:51

THERE were mixed fortunes for the Scotland teams as they opened their campaigns in the Le Gruyere European Championships in Aberdeen yesterday.

Scotland's world champion, David Murdoch from Lockerbie, opened the defence of his European crown with two good wins, beating Sweden by 3-2 and then defeating France 5-2, but Eve Muirhead's women had a couple of bad ends in the middle of their game against Italy, to go down by 6-11.

Murdoch and his team of third Ewan MacDonald, second Pete Smith and lead Euan Byers have won this title in the past two years, and they were never in trouble in their round-robin opener against Sweden's Niklas Edin.

They opened the scoring with a single shot in the first end and after that the teams swapped singles so that they were tied at 2-2 after the fourth, with the Scots holding last stone advantage.

Murdoch patiently blanked the next five ends, and delivered a gentle take-out with the last stone of the game to move the Swedish stone closest to the button just far enough to leave one of his own stones counting shot for a 3-2 win.

Afterwards, he said: "We're normally slow starters and our aim for this week was to get off to a good start, so we're delighted. We just stuck to the game plan and the boys made a lot of shots. I reckon we're going to need to have patience for most of the week and just take our chances when they come".

Against France, the Scots were in control from the start. They opened with two in the second and then stole a single in the fifth for a 3-0 lead. They let France in in the sixth, but moved away again in the seventh for a 4-2 lead. Eventually they stole a further single in the tenth for the 5-2 win after the French were left with an impossible hit-and-stay.

The Scottish women – third Jackie Lockhart, second Kelly Wood and lead Lorna Vevers as well as skip Muirhead – were in control against Italy until, in the fifth, the roof caved in. They carved out a 4-2 lead, thanks to single steals in the third and fourth ends, but Muirhead's last shot in the fifth was tight and wrecked on front stones on its way into the house, leaving Italy with a completely unexpected five for a 7-4 lead.

Matters got worse in the sixth when Muirhead's last stone was taken off the ice for a hogline offence, gifting Italian skip Giorgia Apollonio a further three shots and a 10-4 lead. This left the Scots with too much to do, and although they fought back, they eventually conceded after the ninth with the score at 11-6.

A rueful Muirhead commented: "That was a bad fifth end followed by a really bad sixth end. Before the fifth end we were on top of them, but the five just killed us."

The women play England next, while the men have two games today, against the Czech Republic and Finland.