Police presence at Junior Championships

The early stages of the Junior Women's round robin is over. Three teams have been eliminated from the eleven which started out, and we are down to eight. Carrying forward only the points gained against the teams they have played already - and are still in the competition - the position now, with four more round robin games to play, is Eve Muirhead and Hannah Fleming three wins, Claire Hamilton and Claire MacDonald two wins, Jennifer Dodds and Rebecca Steven one win, Jennifer Paul and Jennifer Marshall no wins. The round robin continues tonight at 7.00pm. Find the results here.

And who is Little Miss Sunshine? See below.

Claire MacDonald

Lauren Gray and Claire Hamilton discuss options as their team went down to Hannah Fleming's side this morning.

Hannah Fleming

Kirsten McNay and Jennifer Martin

Jennifer Marshall and Claire MacDonald

Jennifer Marshall, her team now in the top eight.

And here she is - Carolyn Clark

In fact all the Helen King team wore their colourful tee shirts this morning, and get the ABB Foundation award today! Here, Carolyn (we like the hair) Clark and Louise MacColl work hard on their skip's stone, with Eilidh Templeton in the house.

And what was that about the police? The British Police Curling Championship is on at the Dewar's Rinks this week. Here Neil Fyfe follows his stone with Trevor Harrison and Gordon McKnight in attendance. Dave Murchie is in the house for the Dumfries and Galloway side.

More from Perth

Scary, what? Vicki Adams and Sarah Macintyre

The ABB Foundation presents the award for today's most colourful side to Team Claire Hamilton. (ABB= Anything But Black) This is Rhiann Macleod and Lauren Gray.

Team Howden. Find all the results and standings in the Junior Men's, after two rounds, here.

Men at work. Junior women's standings below.

Team Black: L-R Thomas Sloan, Ally Fraser (who skipped both games today), Graeme Black and Steven Mitchell.

Rebecca Steven rehearses her script.

John Penny, with Dave Hibberd and Robert McBride.

Paul Russell

Claire Lang and Zoe Bain work on Mhairi Baird's stone.

Eve Muirhead looks like she's having a wee nap in this game against Jennifer Marshall.

This guy looks a bit old for the Juniors! Former Scottish Champ Greg Henderson in an Aberdeen timeout.

I think Glen Muirhead wants his sweepers to sweep HARD!

Ally Fraser and John Penny

Abi Brown and Becca Kesley

Here are the standings in the girls event. The top four in Section A will go forward, Eve Muirhead leading the way. Section B has two games still to play.

The boys

That's the Scottish Junior Men's Championship now underway at Perth. You can find all the results and standings here. This is Blair Fraser, playing last stones for the Kerr Drummond team, who came second today against Colin Howden.

Hibby is the new member this season of the Scottish Curler team. (Comment column in the Scottish Curler magazine - what do you mean, you don't read it!)

Here he is, as embedded reporter (aka lead) for John Penny's side!

And working hard with Robert McBride on their skip's stone.

'My flying chicken impression', by Greg Drummond. (Other captions are available)

Gavin Reid, Craig Kirkwood and Michael Reid

There was certainly ice available as Lindsay Gray, Colin Dick and Michael Goodfellow (Jamie Dick's team) romped to a win over Paul Russell in six ends.

Craig Kirkwood and Colin Smith work on Gavin Reid's stone.

All pics by Bob.

Here come the girls

Here we are at Perth and the girls are in the third game of the Scottish Junior Championship finals. Naomi Whyte and Fiona Telfer discuss options. The young Dumfries team seem to be enjoying their first adventures at the Scottish finals.

Kirsten McNay and Jennifer Martin work on Claire MacDonald's stone, with Emma Craig in the head. You can find all the results and standings here.

Mhairi Baird, with Jennifer Dodds behind.

The joy of coaching! Former Scottish Junior and World Junior Champ David Aitken.

Claire Hamilton - and she could well be, come Sunday!

Kimberley Smith and Mhairi Anderson sweep Jennifer Dodds' stone.
And here is Jennifer.

Alan Stanfield is the Chief Umpire.

First outing in the big time for the Jennifer Paul team. Here third Katy Richardson joins the front end Rachel Hannen and Hazel Smith on Jennifer's stone.

Now, I promised to explain how the eleven teams are going to end up as three for Sunday's semi and final. There are two sections of six and five. After the round robin, the top four teams in each will play in a further section of eight. Each team will have already played three of these teams, and their record against these teams is carried forward. After four more games, against the four teams that had started out in the different section, the top ranked team progresses straight to the final; second and third contest a semi. Let me know if that still doesn't make sense.

Scottish Junior Championships

Scotland's junior curling teams have been looking towards this week all season, as the Scottish Junior Championships get underway at the Dewar's Rinks in Perth tomorrow. There are eleven teams in the junior women's event, as there were no qualifying competitions. These teams will play in two sections and the top four in each will fight it out to semis and final. Exactly how, I have no idea. Check out the draw, here. Clear as mud to me, but when I get to Perth I'm sure it will all become clear, and of course I'll explain here.

Who is favourite? Eve Muirhead, above, is the Scottish and World Champion skip. She is fast becoming (or should that be already is) the country's most talented player. Her senior team is top of the rankings in the Columba Cream Scottish. Her junior team is Sarah Macintyre (lead), Vicki Adams (second) and Anna Sloan (third). The four have not had a lot of opportunity to play together this season, but they are undoubtedly the team to beat. Who can do that? Claire Hamilton's team of Caitlin Barr, Rhiann Macleod and Lauren Gray have the potential. We shall see!

The junior men's field has already been reduced to eight after a qualifying round. There will be a round robin beginning on Wednesday with a single semifinal and final on Sunday. Glen Muirhead is the reigning champion, with former rival Greg Drummond now at third, Scott Macleod at second and Scott Andrews at lead. This team had the unenviable task of securing Scotland's place at the World Juniors in Vancouver, and this they accomplished in style (see here). Glen will be keen to get back to the world event to show that his side have much more in them than they were able to produce in Sweden last season.

Who else will challenge? Graeme Black's team have had a great season. Jamie Dick's team qualified for the Bruadar Scottish Finals, although they are not in the draw which has just been published and can be found here. The reason has not been officially announced as I write this but two of the team are involved in the World University Games and in the European Youth Olympics that week. However, the full team - Colin Dick, Lindsay Gray and Michael Goodfellow - will have their full attention on capturing the Scottish Junior title.

Junior curling is passionate, exciting and unpredictable. I love it! Can't wait. Weather permitting, I hope I'll be able to make some posts from Perth this week.

Top: Eve Muirhead. Above: Glen Muirhead

Pics by Bob

The women's battle continues

The eight teams in the Columba Cream Scottish Ladies Curling Championship are playing a double round robin at three different rinks to find the top three for the Page playoff. I missed the first set of games at Aberdeen and so I enjoyed the opportunity to see the girls in action at Kinross this weekend. Competition is extremely tight - every team seems capable of beating any other on the day. But as the weekend's competition came to a close, Eve Muirhead's team (that's her above against Judith McFarlane's side last night) were sitting on a 6-2 win-loss record.

Jill MacDonald and Fiona Steele, from the Judith McFarlane team, work on lead Karen Strang's stone. Judith's team finished the weekend with a 2-6 win-loss. You can find all the results and linescores here.

Sarah Reid's team are on four wins from eight games.

Eyes of the weekend award goes to supersub Megan Priestley!

Here's a closeup!

"What's that you're saying, Bob?" Mairi Milne, here with sister Claire, finished Kinross on three wins.

Lauren Gray concurs that the Kinross rink gets very noisy when the women are playing!

This was a big match on Saturday. Gail Munro (in white) beat Kelly Wood (in black).

Karen Addison and Anne Laird at work.

Gillian Howard's team are very much in contention this season. Four wins after Kinross.

But Gillian will be without third player Kay Adams for the Perth matches as she is in the GB World University Games squad. (My mother always used to tell me, don't frown like that, Robert, the furrows might stick! Be warned, Kay.)

Scottish Champion Gail Munro and her team are also on four wins.

Claire Hamilton's team are playing well, with the Scottish Junior Championship due to begin this Tuesday. Three wins so far in the Ladies' event.

Caption competition time! Karen Strang, Fiona Steele and Judith McFarlane. What's going on?

Joint top of the table is Kelly Wood and her team with a 6-2 record.

Pics by Bob.

Scottish Championship Qualifiers

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.