The final club fixture before the Christmas break was the First Points, played last night (Thursday 15 Dec).  Seven members contested for the medal on ice that was somewhat challenging for a number of the disciples; despite this there were a number of fine performances.  The full ten disciplines were completed on the night, and the eventual winner was Dave Anderson (37 pts), closely followed by Iain Scott (36 pts), with Murray Hope in third position (32 pts).

The Singles Competition took place on Sunday evening with a restricted field of 8 participants; Reg Dunbar came in as a late replacement for an unwell Tom Alexander.  The ice on the night was very slow and heavy, and perhaps in hindsight it would have been better to have run the stones up and down the sheet before commencing.  As a consequence the early ends of the first ties featured numerous short stones.  After the opening exchanges, Iain Scott, Ken Hunter, Dave Anderson and Keith Morris proceeded to the High Road, whilst Dave Carr, Reg Dunbar, Ronnie Hope, and Craig Brown proceeded to the Low Road (see Singles Page).

In the Low Road, Reg beat Dave and Ronnie beat Craig to reach the final.  The final itself was well contested by both players with first one taking the advantage only for the other to come back strongly.  Coming into the last end Ronnie was in a strong position being two shots up, but did not have last stone, however after three stones each he was lying two shots.  He attempted to remove a front opposition stone with his last stone but only managed to deflect it onto his first shot leaving the initiative with his opponent.  (The Gallery clearly thought it was an incorrect option).  Reg elected to strike and executed it well to remove one of Ronnie’s stones and get an inside roll for a two – all square and onto an extra end.  Ronnie’s opener was an attempted draw to the left hand side of the house which ended up just short.  Reg followed this with a draw deep into the house behind Ronnie’s first stone.  Ronnie tried to follow it it but although he had adjusted his ice he was still just short.  Reg played a guard which came to the inside of Ronnie’s two short stones. Ronnie opted to hit the front, removing his outer stone (covering Reg’s counter) and rolling his played stone into a central position for second shot.  Reg’s final draw was not deep enough to change the position, and Ronnie took the medal with a well executed hit and lie for two shots.

In the High Road, Ken beat Iain and Dave came back to beat Keith in the final end of their tie, to reach the final.  Ken stole a three in the first end of the final, and the second end was blanked.  The third ended featured draws and hits to the outer right hand side of the house and ultimately Ken stole a single to go four up.  The fourth end was draw and hit, and at the end Ken had two shots in the front on either side of the outer circle, Dave ignored these and made a fine draw to take a single.  Moving into the fifth end, Ken removed Dave’s first drawn shot, but then managed to play three ‘silent’ strikes against Dave’s further draws leaving the game all square.  The sixth end was largely draws by Dave followed by strikes from Ken; with an empty house for his last shot, Dave had no where to hide and this time Ken managed a Chap and Lie to take the medal.

The 2016-17 Knockout final was contested by Teams Anderson and Ramsay on Monday evening.  The outcome was a 6-4 victory for the Anderson team.  So congratulations to Dave, Reg Dunbar, Pam Ramsay, and Elaine Lambie on lifting the first silverware of the season. 

The semi-finals of the Knockout competition were played in the late shift on Thursday evening. Team Ramsay had a comfortable victory over Team Brown (12-2), and Team Anderson ran out as winners over Team Alexander (6-5).

So Team Ramsay will meet Team Anderson in the final on Monday 5 December (7.30pm).