Let me get this over right away. I was wrong about David Murdoch’s Scottish team.
I still believe the worlds field is a lot weaker than the Brier field – except for David Murdoch. There are two levels of teams at the World Championship level for men’s curling: Scotland and Canada, then everybody else. So, I don’t take that part of my previous post back. But I do take back what I said about Murdoch not being able to qualify for the Brier out of the more difficult provinces in Canada. Clearly, he can.
Who would have thought any team in the world could have beaten Kevin Martin three times in row? There were a lot of people (including me) who thought this team was close to curling invincibility. Teams all over Canada are going to be analyzing those three losses to see the strategy Murdoch employed to take down the giants. One loss to Scotland or anybody could have been considered a fluke, a bad game or lack of focus. Three losses clearly demonstrate an Achiles heel in the Martin machine.
Now the questions that come to my mind are how much are these three losses going to affect Kevin Martin and the rest of his squad? What about the strategy in the tenth end of the final? For a long, long time their minds are going to be occupied with thoughts of not peeling earlier in the end and, of course, throwing the first skip stone away. These are all things that have broken up many good teams.
We are all going to see just how strong of a unit Martin’s team is in the next year and whether they can avoid the team in-fighting that lesser teams suffer. It was clear that Ben Hebert and Marc Kennedy were less than happy with the play of John Morris in the final and we all saw Hebert’s reaction to Martin throwing away his second to last stone in the world final. If this team wants to win a gold medal at the Olympics in Vancouver next year, they will have to get over this loss very quickly. I guarantee you the teams of Glenn Howard, Randy Ferbey, Jeff Stoughton and Brad Gushue already smell blood in the water.
2 Comments
Tuan April 14th, 2009 at 6:52 am
Hi,
I was interested in anyone’s thoughts about the tenth end in the final when Kevin started to peel. With two rocks scoring already and two guards on the centre line, would playing more guards be another option rather than peeling? Seems that by peeling, Martin allowed Scotland to gradually tapping back the two scoring rocks from Canada. I understand wanting to have access to the centre line but having secured shot rock (and second shot rock) would it have not be better to clog the middle to prevent Scotland from tapping them out. Would love to hear comments about this.
Cary April 14th, 2009 at 11:02 am
The strategy mistake that started things off in the tenth end was not peeling with Marc Kennedy’s first. You have arguably the best double-peeler in the game. Even if he peels off only one, Murdoch would have had to throw up another long guard. By hitting and rolling into the four-foot with Kennedy’s first, it started clogging up the four-foot which eventually came back to bite them later in the end.
Murdoch had two options with his last rock: the shot he threw and the double on the two Martin stones in the 8′ and button. Martin could not have guarded both of those shots and by throwing up the guard on either of those options, he could have left himself with no shot at all. He did have a shot with his last one – a more difficult one than he should have – and he missed it. By peeling earlier on, Martin wouldn’t have been in that mess.
I took a look at the video again and paused it for quite some time. Another option Martin could have had was to draw the back button just behind his shot stone. There is no question he would have to be absolutely perfect with the draw, but if he makes it Murdoch couldn’t play the shot he did and remove the Canadian stone on the button.
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