The ten teams which will contest the Bruadar Scottish Men's Curling Championship, February 16-22, were decided at Perth today. (Or were they, see below)
Section B was decided first. Warwick Smith, with seven wins and Hammy McMillan with six, were through with no need to play their ninth game. Tom Brewster and Lee McLeary are also through. Glen Muirhead's team won their last game, against Brewster, to get the fifth spot from this section.
In Section A, David Murdoch was top with seven wins, and had no need to play his ninth round game. Jamie Dick's team had a fine weekend and they had no need to play their last game. David Edward's side, in contrast, had a disappointing qualifying competition, and will not be at the Finals. However, as the last round today got underway they had the fate of a number of teams in their hands. If they beat Ian Watt's side, it was all over, regardless of the other results - Logan Gray (with Pete Loudon skip), Colin Hamilton and Alan Smith would be the other qualifiers. That's what happened. Edwards took four at the second end, stole a two at the third and a single at the fourth. It would have been a bitter sweet victory, that one.
All the results, linescores and standings are here.
Simple, all over. But wait. Jamie Dick has team members committed to the World University Games (Michael Goodfellow), and to the European Youth Olympics (Colin Dick). Will he have an eligible team for the Scottish Finals? Colin Hamilton's team has similar problems, with Mike Dick and David Ramsay unavailable.
Anticipating this problem, the RCCC Rulebook has this new regulation for this season:
(iv) Any team with a member who is selected to represent Scotland or Great Britain at an International Event that takes place during the Finals shall be allowed to use a substitute. That substitute may have been a member of a team eliminated at the Qualifying or Pre-qualifying stage.
However, just how this rule should be interpreted is now in the hands of the Events and Competitions Committee. A tiebreaker was played at Perth today to decide who finished in sixth and seventh place in the ranking for Section A. Find the result here.
A Prize Letter
-
In the run up to Christmas Day, 1893, the *Aberdeen Peoples's Journal*
offered a prize of one guinea for the best letter about curling! That's the
invita...
3 years ago
4 comments:
The ruling says "a" member, not three in this instance as remember Andrew Craigie did sub in the first mens districts weekend and is also going to uni games!
Correct, on both counts.
But when the rule was drafted, was it the intention to cover the eventuality that more than one member of the team would be involved?
This will be for the events committee to sort out.
BTW there's discussion of this now on the Scottish Curling Forum
Bob
I would say that the Chairman of the Events & Competition Committee should be asked to step down from any decision making on this ruling, his team are also part of the discussion.
Would hope that the interpretation of this rule is looked at VERY carefully before a decision is made - make sure there is no way to "stretch" the rule (ie Brora). By all means allow subs to replace ALL members SELECTED TO PLAY for a national team - BUT if the team qualifies to represent Scotland it should be a requirement that the ORIGINAL PLAYERS be brought back into the team.
Post a Comment