Kelso curler Angus Bryce helps see Scots through to semi-finals of junior world championships

The 20-year-old and his team-mates, led by James Craik, secured qualification with an 11-4 victory over the hosts yesterday, May 19, keeping them in pole position in the round-robin standings.

They’re tied with Germany on seven wins and just one loss so far, but their 6-4 win against the Germans on Tuesday means they’ll finish top of their pool if they beat Switzerland today, meaning the hammer would be theirs in any play-offs.

The Kelso Curling Club member and his team-mates’ defeat of the Swedes was their second win of the day, following a 9-2 victory over Norway.

“It was much the same as this morning,” said skip Craik looking back over their defeat of Sweden.

“We came out really, really sharp, used the hammer well and scoring lots of multiples, capitalised on any errors that they made and produced a good performance all round.”

Craik, 20, of Edzell, near Brechin, believes the Scots’ success so far in Scandinavia is partly down to learning from senior players they’ve come up against recently.

“Over the course of the season, we’ve played in a lot of men’s competitions, which has taught us the importance of utilising the hammer when we have it because steals don’t come around too often, so this week our hammer efficiency is really strong and I think that’s been one of our key advantages over other teams,” he said.

Though they know they’ve got a semi-final place in the bag already, Craik, Bryce and team-mates Scott Hyslop, of Dumfries, and Niall Ryder, of Stranraer, won’t be teating this afternoon’s game, at 1pm, as a dead rubber, they say.

“We go into today’s game with much the same intensity,” vowed Craik.

“We’ve got a bit of a roll going now. We dropped one game against Canada, but we bounced back, so we just want to go out, set a marker down for the play-offs and then hopefully keep it going into those.”

The men’s semi-finals take place tomorrow.