Robyn Munro and Orrin Carson have earned the right to represent Scotland on the global stage once again after leading their teams to victory in the Scottish Junior Championships at Curl Aberdeen.
For all eight players in the successful women’s and men’s line-ups the wins mean they will take part in the World Junior Championships for a second successive year, with Munro’s women looking to defend the title they claimed when Fay Henderson was their skip.
Henderson was in her final season in Juniors when she led them to that triumph earlier this year after they had been forced to earn qualification through the World B Championships earlier in the season.
That success means that there is no such hurdle facing Munro, Holly Wilkie-Milne, Laura Watt and Amy Mitchell, who was their alternate at the World Juniors in Germany, but is now a fully fledged member of the team.
“It’s great to have earned that Scottish title again, though, which is the first step towards trying to regain our World Championship title,” said Munro.
“We’re off to Finland this year in different circumstances from last year when we had to go through qualifying to get to the Worlds.
“So, we can just head off with Team Carson and take a lot of confidence from the way that we’ve bounced back from some setbacks in these championships.
“I think we know how strong we are having proved we had an extra gear in that final.
“I absolutely love playing in this team and can’t wait to hit the ice in Finland and continue the journey of trying to win that World Junior title again.”
While Munro and Watt had also won the Scottish title previously, back in 2020, they were made to battle to win it again at the end of a tough week which saw them finish third in the round-robin standings, having lost to both teams that had finished above them.
That meant they had to face the loser of the page play-off between the top two in the semi-final and that match went to the wire.
“At the 10th end in the semi-final I was desperately looking to see if there was a way that we could score two to avoid it going down an extra end, because we know the odds were stacked against us if we did that without the hammer,” the 19-year-old from Stranraer admitted.
She was ultimately forced to draw, however, to score the single point that took the match into overtime, but she and her team raised their game when they had to.
“We played a great extra end and the hit and roll with my last stone put a lot of pressure on Tia (Laurie) and we managed to steal the win,” said Munro.
“We knew it was going to be tough at the extra end, but we also know how strong we are at sticking together and that’s exactly what we did.
“Once we got that win it felt like a huge relief and we could just enjoy the final, where we really hit top gear.” 
The final against Team Soutar was a very different affair as they took complete control early on with a five at the third end on their way to a dominant 10-2 win, the match ending after just seven ends.
“I think we knew we had another level that we hadn’t unlocked from the semi-final and we absolutely did that to come out firing with a great first end which set the tone,” said Munro.
“When we got that five on the board at the third end it settled the nerves and we could just keep the head and carry on until we saw out the win.”
It was, though, an event that indicated that the Scottish women’s game is in excellent shape, looking to the future.
“There’s a great quality of teams in the women’s juniors all with five years left at that level and which is similar to the experience Laura and I had the first year we won,” Munro observed.
“It’s amazing to see how strong they can perform and stick together as teams and I’m sure we’ll battle with them in years to come.”
Carson took a similar view of the men’s game after he and brother Logan, along with Archie Hyslop and Charlie Gibb came through an extra end in the final to squeeze out Team Strawhorn 7-6 in a re-match of last year’s final.
“The quality is very high at the moment with the three top teams in particular and it could have been anyone’s coming into this week and we’re glad it was ours but on another day it might not have been, so we’re very grateful for that,” said the 18-year-old from Dumfries.
“The final was a very close game. I thought we struggled in the first half, but we managed to get through it and I felt like we took the four all at half-time better than them, then came out the second half quite strong and managed to see the game through.”
Having had season’s experience of the World Championships, when his brother Logan, Hyslop and Gibb were all still only 15, he is confident that they can improve on the bronze medal they claimed in Germany.
“This year our discipline’s improved massively,” said Carson.
“That’s been something we really focussed on this week. We kept our heads, kept control and I think that’s why we won today and it’s why we’re only going to get better.
“We’ll be much more ready for the World Juniors this time.
“It came out of nowhere last year and in some ways we were just happy to be there I think, but this year we’ll definitely prepare for it slightly better with the help of our coaches and everyone in British Curling and Scottish Curling and we’ll certainly use that to our advantage.”
Results on the Scottish Curling website.
