Having enjoyed another excellent season so far on the junior circuit, Fay Henderson will go into her defence of her Scottish Junior Championship title in Aberdeen this week with added confidence after rubbing shoulders with the best in the world at senior level last month.
After meeting former Olympic champion Anna Hasselborg in their opening match at the Swede’s home club in the Sundyberg Open, Henderson and teammates Robyn Munro, Holly Wilkie-Milne and Laura Watt drew inspiration from that encounter, going on to reach the semi-finals as they demonstrated their increasing readiness to step up a level. 
“We were quite pleased with our results in Sundyberg as a junior team going into a ladies event when its obviously harder to set goals as you don’t know exactly where you are in terms of fitting in with that field,” said Henderson.
“We just wanted to make play-offs and obviously we exceeded our expectations managing to beat the Norwegian national team that’s heading to the European Championships.
“We played against Hasselborg and Wrana who are the two top Swedish teams out there so we learned a lot from those and gained a lot of experience, then had a really tight game against Italy’s Team Constantini in the 3 v 4 game as well but unfortunately our last two ends were a wee bit loose which cost us the game.”
Heading into the event with two changes to the team since last year’s success, following the recruitment of Munro, who had been in Amy Bryce’s winning rink in 2020 and Watt, the skip reckons a combination of that championship pedigree and that recent trip to Sweden on the back of several junior title wins this season, leave them well placed for this week’s challenge, particularly now that Wilkie-Milne has recovered from a recent foot injury.
“Sundyberg helped us tactically and everyone is back to full fitness ready for the Scottish for the full week ahead,” she said. 
“We are playing some of the teams we have met in the U21 Slams and we have had a good run at those and we are now cautiously optimistic for the week and we have now just got to play well and keep trusting everything we have been doing and keep the concentration and focus up and get through the week.
“Every game we have just got to go and treat it like it is the last game there, no matter whether that be all the round robin games or if we make play-offs – we just have to try and do everything we can to get the title and hopefully head to another world championships.”
While reigning men’s champion James Craik has now left the junior ranks, younger brother Ross is aiming to follow in his footsteps on the back of a European Junior Curling Tour (EJCT) win in Oslo which he believes bodes well for his team which includes Scott Hyslop and Jack Carrick who won the national title and last season’s World Championship with James.
“Oslo was a tough field but for the most part we felt very confident and we were ready for it so to beat Team Kapp in the final and to come away from the event undefeated gave us all a lot of confidence ahead of Aberdeen this week,” said the 18-year-old.
“We now really want to perform at our best and work well together for this big week ahead. We will schedule everything, our meal times, our warm-ups, so having everything scheduled will help us to maintain the focus. 
“Before Oslo we felt our training had been going well and we had a third place finish at the EJCT in St Gallen though Prague was not so good for us. So to bring home the title from Oslo was really good when you are playing that level of competition and some of the best teams in Europe. It gives you a better gauge of where you are at and where you stand and also where we want to get to.”
He knows, too, that he can rely on the support of big brother as he attempts to match James’ achievements.
“We discuss curling a lot,” he said.
“I guess we are both very competitive and of course I want to follow his example. I really want to keep the Craik name on the World trophy but we know we have a tough week ahead and there will be no easy games.
“We know our opponents this week really well, playing on the circuit with them for five or six years and we know we will have really good games with Strawhorn and Carson, but we will have to stay 100% focused for every game this week.” 
“We are also all fortunate that this is being staged at Curl Aberdeen as we really enjoy the competitive ice there. They will host a great event and there will be good support and to be honest, I couldn’t think of a better venue to host the Scottish Juniors this week, I think it is a great ice rink and we are looking forward to it.”
The event gets underway tomorrow and concludes on Sunday (8-13 November) at Curl Aberdeen.
Team Craik
Ross Craik
Scott Hyslop
Struan Carson
Jack Carrick
Team Henderson
Fay Henderson
Robyn Munro
Holly Wlkie-Milne
Laura Watt
#curling
