Continuing their title Scottish Curling Championship defence came down to the last stone played in the round-robin stages and Ewan MacDonald duly delivered what was required at Perth's Dewar's Ice Rink yesterday .

By no means the toughest shot the three time world champion has ever played he cheerfully admitted afterwards that his draw to what was virtually an open house had carried extra tension as he brought to an end a day's play that had been expected to go into over-time.

"We were keeping everyone excited... and ourselves," he said, grinning widely.

"It should be a gimme I suppose, but when it's to qualify for the semi there's a wee bit more to it."

The three play-off places in the women's competition having been decided the previous day only Dave Murdoch's Olympic silver medallists were assured of a place in the knockout stages of the men's competition ahead of the final tranche of the round-robin matches and it seemed likely that a tie break would be required last night to sort things out.

However victory for Bruce Mouat's rink over fellow junior Stuart Taylor's and a slightly surprising defeat for Kyle Smith's at the hands of Ross McLeary, whose team had won only one of their previous six matches, meant the final place would be taken by the winner of the match between MacDonald and teenage skip Cammy Bryce's rink.

For all the superior experience of MacDonald and his men it was closely contested throughout and while they looked to have taken control with a double at the eight end to open up a 6-3 lead Bryce responded in kind to leave just one shot between them going into the final end before ultimately forcing the 39-year-old to produce that decisive delivery.

In its way that summed up the depth of competition throughout the week and having made relatively serene progress a year ago MacDonald acknowledged as much in observing: "The young guys are getting really strong now. There's no gimmes out there, that's for sure so you've got to work hard."

They claimed their title in the absence of last year's Olympians following the controversial decision to prevent them from taking part in this event and therefore the World Championships for which they double as a qualifier, by staging them at the same time as they were in Sochi, but Murdoch and his team have gone some way to reasserting themselves by finishing top of the rankings after the round-robin stage.

That means they now go into the first v second play-off match with Bruce Mouat, who recently won the Scottish Junior Championships, the winners going on to the finals, while the losers will meet the winners of the sudden-death clash between the third and fourth placed finishers.

That match is a replay of last year's final as MacDonald resumes a growing rivalry with Dave Edwards, whose team created an upset at this season's Euro play-downs by getting the better of the teams that are supported by the GB performance programme, skipped by Murdoch and Brewster, to earn the right to represent Scotland at the European Championships.

However as last year's winners know, a new competition begins today and MacDonald feels ready for it.

"At the start of the week you're trying to do your best to get into the top four and now we wipe the slate clean and start again," he said.

"I like playing on Saturday and Sunday so hopefully we can keep the momentum going through to that."

Similar sentiments were expressed by Eve Muirhead, the heavy favourite in the women's event who duly claimed top spot after their round-robin phase, losing just two matches on the way.

"So far so good," was her assessment.

"I think every game we've got better and better and we've learned from the losses we've had and after them we bounced back, played well and every game's got better and better.

"This is the position we wanted to be in as number one going into the one-two game with the hammer when it's back to the start of a new competition. This is the serious part of the week so I guess your mind changes because it's the play-off stages and you don't have any second chances, so this is when you've got to be sharp."

The 24-year-old's demeanour could best be described as respectful but confident as she eyed the task ahead, facing Hannah Fleming in the first of today's play-off matches with the winners again going directly into the final while the losers will meet Gina Aitken's rink in the final eliminator.

"Gina won the Scottish Juniors recently and she's had a really good week out here," said Muirhead.

"Anything can happen because it's the Scottish Championships so you take what you get, but I think the top three are pretty much what's expected."