Scots’ Performance Truly World-Class

14/04/2009 04:48

Murdoch must now be considered Olympic co-favorite

When it well and truly counted Sunday night, Kevin Martin simply couldn't find his mojo.

And chances are, he'll find it somewhere in the vicinity of the rock he intentionally, and stunningly, threw to the backboards in the 10th end of Sunday's Ford world men's curling championship gold-medal game loss to Scotland's David Murdoch.

That head-scratching shot -- or to put it better, the lack of one -- will be debated ad nauseam in the wake of Scotland's stolen 8-6 victory that handed Murdoch his second world title in four years.

But suffice to say, if there were any doubts that Murdoch and his Lockerbie foursome -- third Ewan MacDonald, second Peter Smith and lead Euan Byers -- were world-class, on a level with the Martins, Glenn Howards and Randy Ferbeys, they should be erased now.

"It shows we're doing something right," said Murdoch, the government-funded pro curler who turns 31 on Friday. "We're playing a tough game, we managed to beat an unbeatable Canadian team.

"It's just unbelievable. At the start of the week, you hope to get in the final and get a good game against Canada, and to come here this week and beat them three times, I think that shows the belief this team has."

So should everybody else after a brilliant performance here against Martin's overwhelmingly favoured half-Edmonton (Martin, second Marc Kennedy) half-Calgary (third John Morris, lead Ben Hebert) foursome, which lost three of its final four games here, all to Murdoch.

But in the final, it all seemed to be going Canada's way. Martin had erased Scotland's first-end last-rock advantage by the fourth end, and was dictating the game through the eighth end, when he stole a single on Murdoch's last-rock draw being inches too heavy, to take a 6-4 lead.

In the ninth, though, Martin faltered with his final two deliveries, including a fairly routine double takeout on his last stone, to give Murdoch a draw for a game-tying deuce.

Then, the 10th, when it all went south, thanks partly to two Scottish centre guards left inexplicably in play until third rocks.

"I was a little surprised he wasn't peeling the guards," admitted Murdoch. "But he wanted to control that top-of-four-foot zone, and he did it well, but he left us a few openings at the end and it worked to our advantage."

Yeah, you might say that.

More from the Edmonton Journal.

SWIVEL HIPS SAYS:

After this debacle, I can hardly wait for the 2010 Olympic curling folks – and whoever Canada’s team is - to have another shot at Scotland and David Murdoch.