From the perspective of the vanquished:

Well, we did it again. This really has become a feature of the latter part of our season.  We drop a large score early on in the game, then play well to claw back the deficit by the penultimate end, only to lose the cliff-hanger final end!

I am writing this too late to remember the specifics of the game but I do recall that our opposing third, Dougie, had a particularly good game, achieving a remarkably high percentage of his called shots.  Indeed, I seem to recall congratulating him through gritted teeth on his contribution to the last end – the end that sealed our fate as winners of the wooden spoon in the league. 

But it was a good game and everyone played well.  C’est la vie.

John.

Teams B and D were at full strength for this match, as the season gets towards the sharp end.  Team B lost the toss and chose blue stones.  My team D got an early yellow counter, though it felt very precarious as it became surrounded by four blues in the house.  Still, we managed to guard that lone counter, and it held on to score a single. 

We were on sheet one, and the ice was strange – playing generally dead straight down the north side, while in-swinging well but sometimes massively on the south side by the edge.

Second end saw the first two stones stop short before Fiona got to the button behind them, and that stone remained shielded to count one for 1-1.

Third end we’d got more of a feel for the ice, and Dave and James laid two well-guarded counters on the left, and with the hammer I could draw a last-stone counter down the right.

Fourth end was decisive, with a good spread of yellows developing while blue stones seemed to either stop short or go through, so in the end five yellows had the house to themselves.

John pulled one back next, but that was to be it, as things just wouldn’t go their way on the night.

This result means that our team D will now finish somewhere nicely mid-table, after a strange season distinctly ‘of two halves’!  Losing the first straight six games, often narrowly, but then winning seven out of eight, with good stats.   I’m really grateful to Dave, James and Ken for staying positive through that first half, staying with the rather different tactics, and just playing so well as a team, thanks guys.

Also (in case this is my last match report this season), to me it emphasises how surprisingly tricky it is to shift mind-set from being full-time third to being the full-time skip.  I think this may be the first season in years (ever?) that the skip emerging from the previous Thirds’ mini-league has then managed to stay on to skip for a second season?  It’s clearly tricky – but it could be seen as this good rotation scheme now working fully at last. 

Plenty of curling left, with a couple of games and the Awayday yet to come, on we go, cheers … 

Rob.

Not sure that we will get a report from the winning rink but the following is the terse response to my question “what happened in the last end?” received from the losing skip:

“…….. a last attempt to restrict them to a single shot backfired and they ended up with the two and John opted not to play his last stone”.