It’s a well-worn cliché but if ever there was an instance of a game of two halves, then this was it. After three ends, Team W were languishing two stones to six. After the seventh and final end they were 12 stones to the good and Team Auld had failed to score any further.
Team W opened the scoring with a two but it was in the second end that their confidence was severely shaken. Team Auld had a lot of stones behind a wall and by the time it came to skip W’s stones, the only option was to try and tap stones up – without success. Five shots for Team Auld.
The third end also went Team Auld’s way, albeit just a single, and Team W were feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
But fortunes then changed, although Team W only gained singles in the fourth and fifth ends and Team Auld could still have hoped to hold on for a victory. If only.
The wheels fell off for Team Auld in the sixth end. Team W’s crack team of front end players created a quite unusual straight line of four almost touching stones vertically through the house. A fast delivery from Team Auld could have done serious damage but despite repeated efforts, could Team Auld touch them? No they couldn’t. With good guarding, Team W walked away from that end with a five – revenge for the second end.
For the seventh end, caution was the watchword for Team W. They managed to get several stones in the house but only one counting because of a pesky Team Auld stone alongside. But that would be more than enough – all their skip had to do was guard it, and guard it he did. Skip Auld was left with a do-or-die attempt down the other side to try and push up one or more of his stones lying front of house. His stone rattled down the ice threatening to shower granite chips over the watching players. Was it death or was it glory? Sadly the former – by an astonishing piece of bad luck the shot only succeeded in cannoning his second lying stone out and leaving Team W three up. Game over. A Lazarus-like win for Team Waterlow; hopes for a change of fortune for Team Auld.
John W.
Holyrood Curling Club 