Kelly Robertson and his Neepawa-based curling team uncharacteristically struggled for four games in the middle of round-robin play at the Canadian Senior Men’s Curling Championship at Abbotsford, B.C., and Robertson thinks that cost his squad a playoff spot or tiebreaker.
Robertson, who curls with Souris’ Doug Armour, Dauphin’s Peter Prokopowich and Winnipeg’s Bob Scales, got off to a 3-1 start in defence of their 2011 national title this week before losing four games in a row and were eliminated from playoff contention on Friday.
“We were disappointed with the way we played for four games there, especially in the Saskatchewan and Quebec games,” said Robertson, who gave up four in the ninth to lose 10-7 to Quebec and two four-spots to Saskatchewan. “We just didn’t play very well and we were kind of disappointed. We needed to win one of those games and we might have been in for a tiebreaker. It’s disappointing in that respect, but the good news is we’re back to playing the way we are.
“You’re not going to win every time you come out.”
Manitoba bounced back with a pair of wins, including a 9-4 win over New Brunswick’s Mark Armstrong Friday afternoon, to improve to 5-5. Their late game against Nova Scotia’s David McCusker was still in progress late last night.
Robertson feels his team had a respectable record at the national championship. More importantly, he feels they are back to playing well as they prepare to play in the world senior men’s curling championship in Copenhagen, Denmark from April 14 to 21.
“It’s very unusual for a team to struggle like we did for that many games,” said Robertson, who was the fourth-best shooting skip at 79 per cent prior to last night’s round-robin finale. “One or two games we’ve done that before, but we did struggle for four games, and it wasn’t one of us, it was all four of us. I think we’ve got a good frame of mind and we’re confident about going to worlds and we’re looking forward to it.”
» cjaster@brandonsun.com
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition March 24, 2012
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