January 2024 - irish-curling.orgirish-curling.org

Dumfries once again plays host to the Irish Men’s Championship as two teams are set to contest a best-of-three series to determine Team Ireland at the next European Championships.

Defending champions Team Wilson are aiming to defend their crown after retaining Ireland’s status in B-Division at the 2023 Europeans in Perth. Skip John Wilson is once again supported by third Kyle Paradis and lead Craig Whyte. Andrew Gilmore will step in as second instead of James Russell. The team are supported by their coach, Eoin McCrossan. Although they are no strangers to the international stage, they are hungry for more and are excited to get playing. “We always relish a national championship” explains skip John Wilson “and we’re excited to play some good games and try and defend our crown!”.

They will face Team Mathews, led by current Irish Mixed Champion Brian Mathews. He will be joined by 2012 world senior champion Bill Gray as well as previous Irish men’s representatives Arran Cameron and Steve Callan. Brian sprung a bit of a surprise at last season’s Irish mixed to emerge as champion and is happy to do the same again: “I think I play best when there’s no pressure involved and I can just play my game. The team are looking forward to having a good weekend and seeing what happens. It’ll be great!”

The games are scheduled as follows:

Game 1: Saturday 11am
Game 2: Saturday 4pm
Game 3: Sunday 10am

Keep track of the ICA social media for results and pictures and Dumfries Curling YouTube page for some potential streaming.

The 2024 Four Nations was a successful outing for the Irish Curling Association as they won two of the three trophies they contested, beating Scotland and England, but lost to Wales by a single shot in a tight tussle for the triple crown.

This year’s event was held at the Flower Bowl near Preston, England and a small band of Irish players travelled up, down and across the Atlantic for the chance to represent the association. Things started well for the Irish with two contests against Wales on Friday night. Dale Sinclair skipped the women to a handsome win, with Kyle Paradis doing enough to give Ireland the tie in a loss to the Welsh men. The highlight of the contest was a memorable double to score 2 in the 8^th end and send Ireland into Sunday with a 2-shot lead.

Saturday morning was the reverse for the team as Kyle Paradis skipped his men to a big win over England, and Dale Sinclair kept it close in a narrow loss to England that came down to the last shot. Things got better and better for the team with Ross Barr leading the men to a huge win over the Scots and Bernie Gillet lost in the final end to give Ireland the lead in all 3 trophies overnight.

A wonderful dinner and some memorable (if less than wonderful) dancing followed, with the President leading by example as ever with his full dancing arsenal on show.

On Sunday, 6 mixed games would decide the fate of the trophies and the first set of games were against Wales. A strong win for Wales against Kyle Paradis left Ross Barr with it all to do. He did manage to win, but the Welsh knew they had done enough and peeled out the final shot of the game to win the contest overall and retain The Meikle Trophy. A topsy-turvy second set of games against England saw Kyle Paradis take an early lead, only to draw his game and Eoin McCrossan was down 6-2 before coming back to win 7-6. Thanks to the previous day’s results, The Turnbull Trophy was secured for another season. Finally, the Scottish games. Ireland had a 9-shot lead from Saturday and they needed every single one as Scotland had levelled the contest after 4 ends. Ross Barr, pulled a few shots back to limit the damage but the comeback kid of the day, Eoin McCrossan, skipped his team for a 5-0 deficit to win 7-5. The Marshall Millenium Trophy was once again Ireland’s.

The final results were:

Marshall Millennium Trophy: Ireland 31 – 27 Scotland

The Turnbull Trophy: Ireland 33 – 25 England

The Meikle Trophy: Ireland 30 – 31 Wales