Team Brewster began the New Year the way they ended the old one with a tournament victory as they defeated Chinese, German and Norwegian opposition in the knockout stages at the Mercure City of Perth Masters yesterday.
It was a record fourth victory with a fourth different line-up for skip Tom Brewster in this prestigious international event that has been won by just three other Scottish skips since his first triumph in 2001 and sets him and team-mates Glen Muirhead, Ross Paterson and Hammy McMillan up for the defence of their Scottish title on the same ice at the Dewars Centre next month.
They have bounced back impressively after a strangely erratic and ultimately disappointing performance at the European Championships in Glasgow in November when they beat all three teams that won medals in the round-robin matches but failed to get themselves into the knockout stages.
“You can maybe look at the Europeans as a turning point where there was a realisation,” said Brewster.
“We flicked a switch and recognised that we know we’re capable of making all the shots. We even proved it at the Europeans, but it’s about game management and managing ourselves. I think we did that and we’ve done that since and it’s worked.”
Their competitive year subsequently ended in Japan when they beat fellow Scots and defending champions Team Murdoch in the final of the Karuizawa International, going through that event unbeaten.
In the first tournament of a year in which the British Curling selectors will decide on their team for next year's Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, they could not quite replicate that in Perth ultimately playing six qualifying matches to reach the knockout stages.
Once there they came through two tricky ties, edging out both China’s Team Rui and Germany’s Team Baumann by stealing shots at the final ends and the final was another tight battle with Team Walstad, who had, in the semi-final, shocked fellow Norwegians Team Ulsrud, the former world champions who were the only team to beat the Scottish champions in the course of the competition, until Brewster played turned the match his side’s way at the sixth of the eight ends.
It had been one of the poorer ends they had played, but given a difficult chance to remove two opposition stones and lie three, Brewster executed the shot perfectly and the pressure told on the Norwegians at the next end as they allowed another two to be stolen and promptly shook hands.
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