World Champions Team Mouat were pushed to the limit, but applied just enough pressure when it mattered most to allow them to hang onto their Mercure Perth Masters title at the end of an epic final with their closest Scottish rivals.
Opposing skip Ross Whyte and his teammates Robin Brydone, Duncan MacFadzean and Euan Kyle had been given a boost ahead of the event when the New Year adjustments to the world rankings had moved them to fourth position, the highest placed Scottish side and they lived up to that status as they reached the final unbeaten. 
Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan had meanwhile lost their final pool match to Team Brunner, but they had reversed that result with a 6-2 win against the Swiss quartet in the semi-finals after squeezing past Norway’s Team Hostmaelingen 7-6 in the quarter-finals to earn their place in the final against Whyte’s men, who had won another all-Scottish encounter in their semi-final with Team Waddell.
The quality of play in the final meant that neither side was able to claim a significant advantage until a perfectly judged angled raise by Whyte nudged a second stone onto the button to edge into the lead for the first time at 3-2 at the sixth of the eight ends.
Mouat then opted to blank the seventh end before he took his turn, under maximum pressure, to produce an angled raise at the eighth, this time for a takeout that looked as if it might have won the match, only for the measure to rule in Whyte’s favour, which meant only one had been scored, bringing about an extra end.
It was another tense affair as both teams patiently awaited their opportunity and Whyte looked as if he might have done enough when he blocked off the most obvious chance for Mouat to produced another raised takeout.
That led to a lengthy discussion with his team, but Mouat somehow worked out the angles to see an opportunity to raise an opposing stone onto one of his own, which then took Whyte’s shot stone off the button. 
Whyte then looked to have responded with a brilliant attempt at a raised takeout of his own, but he was unable to move Mouat’s counter quite far enough.
“It wasn’t plain sailing but we did enough to win the event and had a really good day today,” said Mouat, whose men maintained a run of success that has seen them win every Perth Masters since 2018.
“We played really well in the last three games. In all of them we played to a pretty high standard and that is what you need to do on a play-off day and I was glad to get that one over the line.
“We played some really nice shots there to put Ross and the boys under pressure and we got the result in the end.
“It’s always exciting to win. It’s what we play for and what we train for and Perth has so much history behind it and we used to come and watch this event when we were a lot younger and we watched all the big Canadian teams come over to compete in this event so it is always a pleasure to play at Perth and they have run the event really well.”
In the women’s event Clancy Grandy claimed her second Perth Masters title and her first as skip, having been part of another visiting Canadian line-up which won the event seven years ago.
They had lost to the top ranked Scots in the pool stages, but Team Morrison’s run had come to a surprise end in the semi-finals when they were beaten by 2002 World Championship winning skip Jackie Lockhart as she and her team rolled back the years.
A third match of the day proved one too many for the veterans as they suffered an 8-3 defeat, but Lockhart was satisfied with the way they had performed.
“Me and my senior team are so chuffed that we made it to the final,” she said.
“We made it to the quarters last year and we were ecstatic, so to do two better and make it to the finals.
“We lost it but we have nothing but admiration for the young teams that we are playing against.
”We are using this for practice for our senior ladies team and it is great to have an international here in Perth, so no complaints and we are very happy with our performance here this weekend.”
For Lockhart it was also an opportunity to do some homework in her regular role as a television commentator and she was impressed with what she saw from the up-and-coming Scottish women, including world number 13 ranked Team Morrison, who had beaten them in the pool stages ahead of that semi-final upset.
“There is huge pressure on the programme teams and they play a lot and are training every day so they probably feel the pressure more and feel the need to win the medals and I empathise with that at the end of my career I was also doing that before I stopped, so I have great admiration for them and that is their dream, so they need to pursue that,” she said. 
“They also need to play teams like us that don’t always play the game the way they do now to make it difficult for them as it will always make them better players.
“I am really impressed with the womens teams in Scotland just now. We got lucky today and read the ice really well, but the girls are so good now with the ticking shots and peeling shots and how they play.
“The game has changed massively since my day. These girls play the push, touch and the delivery is impressive to see and I think our Scottish teams are on the up and playing in all the Slams and getting so much experience at that level I am really looking forward to seeing what happens at Milan Cortina.
“It is about how you hold your nerve at these big competitions and they are getting the best preparation for that.”
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