This time last year Lauren Gray was skip of the quartet considered most likely to present a challenge to Eve Muirhead’s dominant rink at the Scottish Curling Championships and she duly made a decent fist of it, getting to the final which was closer than many expected.

Some negotiations at the end of last season turned things around, however, when she was invited to join the rink that currently lies fifth in the world rankings and she admitted yesterday that playing lead for Team Muirhead is a very different experience.

“It’s a different position to be playing in this year but I’ve been training for that and getting used to the role,” she said.

“It is definitely a position I’ve not been in before having always been the underdog as the opponent, but we had a good chat before the competition about going in with 100 per cent effort for every game and looking to build on the season.”

They certainly imposed themselves on the opening day, first facing a team skipped by Gina Aitken who has already won a national title in an Olympic discipline this season in mixed doubles with Bruce Mouat and then Team Fleming who are seen as their principal challengers having risen steadily through this season to establish themselves in the top 30 in the world.

The battle with Aitken was pretty much over after the opening end where they picked up a four and a five was subsequently registered at the fifth, their opponents accepting the inevitable when 11-1 down having played the requisite minimum of six ends.

Team Fleming put up more of a fight, scoring on all the ends on which they had the hammer, but forced into taking one each time, whereas the favourites took a three at the third and twos at each of the fifth and seventh ends to again wrap things up without having to play the final end and Muirhead was satisfied with their performance.

“Those are two really tough teams but we came out and played really well, so that’s got the ball rolling and we just want to continue and keep getting stronger,” she said.

“You want to put your authority down and show them that we’re here to mean business and we’re going to take a lot of beating and I think we did that there.”

Intriguingly the only other team to win both their matches on the opening day of the women’s event was what is nominally Team Hazel Smith, but is being skipped from the number three position by Claire Hamilton, Muirhead’s lead when they claimed a bronze medal at the Winter Olympics in Sochi and in which Sarah Reid, who replaced Hamilton in Team Muirhead three years ago but in turn made way for Gray, is playing last stones.

They opened up with a win over Team Wilson, establishing a commanding 6-3 lead after six ends and holding on in spite of losing shots at each of the last two, then finished more emphatically against the team skipped by Gina Aitken’s younger sister Karina when, 5-4 ahead, they registered a five at the ninth end.

The prospect of those two teams remaining unbeaten until the final round of matches in the qualifying stages, carries echoes of the rivalry that has grown in the men’s game since the Winter Olympics between silver medal winning team-mates Tom Brewster and Team Murdoch.

Brewster has had the better of their exchanges in the major domestic events over the past year, winning this event last year and also the three team play-offs which saw his men represent Scotland at the European Championships at Braehead in November.

They made the better start once again at this event, winning their first three matches.

By contrast Murdoch’s rink suffered an upset in the second round of games when they were beaten by Team Hardie, but under some pressure against Team Smith, who had won their first two matches, they responded well to establish an early lead and ultimately run out 7-5 winners.

That left Brewster and Hardie with the only unbeaten records after the first three rounds.