The Moray Province East curling League kicked off this week, albeit somewhat belatedly and Aberlour’s Andy Cameron laid down a marker of his intention for this season. Having been just pipped for last term’s title, the Speyside rink had no difficulty in ruthlessly dispatching their Fochabers opponents. Wilson Burnett and co may have thought they were in a contest having counted 2 shots at the opening end but thereafter, their only consolation was a single shot in the sixth end. Cameron’s count of 4 at the fourth gave his side a huge 9 -2 lead and handshakes were exchanged on an 11-3 win.
At 9-2, it appeared that the Cameron crew had somewhat taken their foot off the gas. Lead player John Sharpe was more worried about protecting his decrepit knees,both of which were more heavily bandaged than Tutankhamen, whilst Lilia Clark and Gavin Cameron’s concentration seemed to drift toward what the weekend might hold in store. Skip Andy was content to allow his team some leeway knowing that one stern look would be sufficient to switch them back on in the more testing times to come.
On an adjacent sheet of ice, last year’s champions Charlie Watt’s Forres came a cropper, losing big time to Steve Rankin. Like Cameron, Rankin’s rink were also leapfrogged to the Division 1 title by the Forres man but on this occasion,a 10-1 thrashing was at least a degree of revenge for the Buckie team.
In Division 2, Mike MacDonald got his campaign off to a fine start with a 10-6 victory over Jim Gault. 3-1 behind after 3 ends, the Forres lads took a 5 at the fourth and stole at the following 2 ends to ease out a 10-3 lead. A consolation 3 at the last end was at least some consolation for Gault’s Aberlour rink.
Guile and experience were the keys to Dave McPherson’s Tennis Club win over the fancied Juniors of Ben Rankin. Skipped skilfully by ex male model Roy Thomson, the Tennis Club rink opened proceedings with a count of 4 shots and 2 single shot steals to lead 6-0. The second half was much more even , but in reality the Juniors never really threatened to get the result they would have liked in a 7-4 loss.
A special mention is due to the ice team at Moray Leisure Centre for producing good , keen ice,a task that is never easy in the relatively mild conditions of early season Autumn.