As the round-robin section of The Hardie Engineering Scottish Curling Championships reached the halfway stage at the Dumfries Ice Bowl, the teams that have dominated both events in recent years have pulled clear of the field.
In the women’s event last year’s finalists are the only teams with winning records and both remain on 100 per cent after three matches. 
Defending champions Team Henderson produced a powerful finish after falling behind after six ends, to beat Team Leigh 9-4, while the winners of the previous two years Team Morrison had to work harder to stay unbeaten, edging out Laura Watt’s youngsters 6-5 with a steal at the final end.
Meanwhile, in the men’s event, three teams have pulled clear of the pack, including last year’s finalists skipped by Ross Whyte, the defending champions and James Craik.
For Craik, Mark Watt, Angus Bryce and Blair Haswell it was a challenging third day of action as they were made to work to hold off Scottish Junior champions Team Carson 7-6, before their skip had to play a precision draw with his final stone to secure a 8-7 win over Team Bryce in the last match of the day on ice.
By contrast Whyte, Robin Brydone, Duncan McFadzean and Euan Kyle had to complete just six ends of both their matches in beating Team Thomson 7-3 and Team Cameron 9-2.
The most relaxing morning of all was enjoyed by Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan as they made the most of their bye before coming out in the evening to register a convincing 9-4 win over Team Waddell.
Having missed out on the final last year, after winning the event the previous four times they had played in it, the world number one ranked quartet are settling in to the task, but know there are major challenges to come to ensure their involvement in the play-offs.
“We’re really enjoying the ice, the arena’s looking really nice again and there have been some good games so far,” said Mouat
“We’ve got some tough games towards the end of the round-robin, so it’s good to have built some momentum heading into those,
“We enjoyed having the bye, which meant we were all well rested coming into that game against Kyle after doing some stuff around Dumfries to fill the day up a wee bit, but it was a good time to have that.
“Now it’s two two-game days to close out the round-robin, so it should be a good way to finish it.”
The focus they brought to their only match of the day demonstrated both the respect they have for opposing skip Kyle Waddell, who has regularly been their fifth player at European and World Championships in recent times and the way they are approaching this event. 
“We know Kyle very well, having had him as our fifth man for the past three years and he and the guys always play pretty well, so it was good to be out there playing against him and we were on the winning side obviously, but it’s always a good game,” said Mouat.
“It looks like we’ll have two tough games on Thursday and Brycie’s also playing really well, so we’re going to have a tough game tomorrow night, but we’re looking forward to playing all of those games heading into Friday, Saturday hopefully.”
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Images: PPA / Graeme Hart
