The final of the Arthur Frame trophy traditionally takes place as a prelude to the Glasgow Province AGM and so it was this year with XX club having fought through the qualifying stages, beating Bank of Scotland in the semi-final and meeting reigning champions Drystanes in the final last Wednesday night.
The ice, although well pebbled, appeared a bit straighter than normal, and early stones were only taking about 18" of draw at the tail end of their journey. Heavier stones going down central ice conversely were moving considerably, while those on wider ice had a tendency to sit out. It was one of those games where whoever took control would be asked to play the simpler shots, and those chasing would have problems.
The opening two ends opened cagily enough with Drystanes finding good draw weight first and reading the ice to have guards in the right place. This resulted in steals of a single in each of the first two ends. The third end brought about a change of fortune with XX dictating the early play, and aided by a couple of erroneous Drystanes promotes of two opposition stones, XX found themselves lying four with last stone advantage. Opposition skip John Fingland duly played a rescue draw shot to reduce the advantage to a single shot but it was lying open and skip John Henderson duly removed it to get XX off the mark and into the lead with a big 5.
While the stones were being sorted there was much muttering in the XX camp about ‘not throwing all the good work away’ but as so often happens, that is what they proceeded to do. A lead guard and draw round by Drystanes was sufficiently tempting to try to remove the shot stone. Through a mixture of inaccuracy and stones falling out at weight, four XX stones were wasted without achieving anything and Drystanes continued to pour draw shots into the head. The end result was to give up a score of 4 shots and all of a sudden XX were behind again by 6-5. That proved to be the pivotal end. Against the head a further two shots were given up to increase the deficit to 3 going into what would prove to be the last end.
Again a cluttered head developed with XX lying shot on the button, frozen on to a Drystanes shot and a further two XX yellow stones in the front 4 foot. However a perfect freeze draw by Drystanes negated the other two counters that XX needed to force the peel. A plethora of guards left only a narrow entrance and a XX strike managed to sneek through and rearrange the head sufficiently that Skip John with last stone had an angled raise tap back on a wide yellow stone to attempt to remove the one red stone that was lying second shot just behind the button, and force the peel. It was always on the light side and thus not to be and the teams shook hands at 8-6 to Drystanes. It proved to be another year of nearly but not quite. However congratulations to John Henderson, Alan Sloan, Steve Laverock and Ian Taylor (standing in for sometime lead Mike Brown). On reflection the team did not play their best stones in the Final regardless of the ice conditions, and they were the first to admit that they did not deserve to win the match.
It was good to see a few XX supporters (Pres Ian, Wiggie, Gordon Deakin and Ian Wylie) along before the AGM to catch some of the action. It was just a shame that the team could not quite raise their game enough to give them cause for celebration.
There is always next year…!
The ice, although well pebbled, appeared a bit straighter than normal, and early stones were only taking about 18" of draw at the tail end of their journey. Heavier stones going down central ice conversely were moving considerably, while those on wider ice had a tendency to sit out. It was one of those games where whoever took control would be asked to play the simpler shots, and those chasing would have problems.
The opening two ends opened cagily enough with Drystanes finding good draw weight first and reading the ice to have guards in the right place. This resulted in steals of a single in each of the first two ends. The third end brought about a change of fortune with XX dictating the early play, and aided by a couple of erroneous Drystanes promotes of two opposition stones, XX found themselves lying four with last stone advantage. Opposition skip John Fingland duly played a rescue draw shot to reduce the advantage to a single shot but it was lying open and skip John Henderson duly removed it to get XX off the mark and into the lead with a big 5.
While the stones were being sorted there was much muttering in the XX camp about ‘not throwing all the good work away’ but as so often happens, that is what they proceeded to do. A lead guard and draw round by Drystanes was sufficiently tempting to try to remove the shot stone. Through a mixture of inaccuracy and stones falling out at weight, four XX stones were wasted without achieving anything and Drystanes continued to pour draw shots into the head. The end result was to give up a score of 4 shots and all of a sudden XX were behind again by 6-5. That proved to be the pivotal end. Against the head a further two shots were given up to increase the deficit to 3 going into what would prove to be the last end.
Again a cluttered head developed with XX lying shot on the button, frozen on to a Drystanes shot and a further two XX yellow stones in the front 4 foot. However a perfect freeze draw by Drystanes negated the other two counters that XX needed to force the peel. A plethora of guards left only a narrow entrance and a XX strike managed to sneek through and rearrange the head sufficiently that Skip John with last stone had an angled raise tap back on a wide yellow stone to attempt to remove the one red stone that was lying second shot just behind the button, and force the peel. It was always on the light side and thus not to be and the teams shook hands at 8-6 to Drystanes. It proved to be another year of nearly but not quite. However congratulations to John Henderson, Alan Sloan, Steve Laverock and Ian Taylor (standing in for sometime lead Mike Brown). On reflection the team did not play their best stones in the Final regardless of the ice conditions, and they were the first to admit that they did not deserve to win the match.
It was good to see a few XX supporters (Pres Ian, Wiggie, Gordon Deakin and Ian Wylie) along before the AGM to catch some of the action. It was just a shame that the team could not quite raise their game enough to give them cause for celebration.
There is always next year…!