He never doubted that his team could go all the way when the Scottish Curling Championships got underway this week, but there was still an air of disbelief in Bruce Mouat’s reaction as they registered a three at the final end to turn their semi-final with local favourites Team Smith around in Perth last night.

The World Junior champions had made errors in the previous two ends to spurn potential opportunities to take control of the match, but they out-manoeuvred their highly rated opponents when it mattered most and the normally unflappable Mouat was astonished at the way it finished.

“The only way I thought I wouldn’t be playing my last stone was if we didn’t have a shot for two, so to not to have to play because we were lying three to win the game is a bit different,” he said.

Having won the World University Games earlier this month, Mouat and colleagues Bobby Lammie, Derrick Sloan and Gregor Cannon now find themselves up against Olympic silver medallists Team Murdoch in today’s final and the young skip acknowledged that there is a gulf in experience to be bridged.

“I just got told that I was 10 the first time Dave Murdoch won it. However we felt the way we’ve been playing the past month we deserve this. The guys have put in the effort and we’ll come out firing tomorrow,” said the 22-year-old.

They certainly have no reason to be fearful having ended the title defence of the even more experienced Tom Brewster and his team-mates Glen Muirhead, Ross Paterson and Hammy McMillan earlier in the day, earning admiration for Mouat in particular from their opponents.

“There is absolutely no doubt Bruce is going to be a force,” said Brewster.

“He’s got a really good manner about the ice. He’s very quiet and unassuming, just gets on with it, nothing ruffles him. It doesn’t matter whether he’s three up or three down. I must admit he’s very impressive. He’ll do things in the future there’s no about it.”

Murdoch, Greg Drummond, Scott Andrews and Michael Goodfellow, had also earned their place in the final with a victory over Kyle Smith and his colleagues, Thomas Muirhead, Kyle Waddell and Cammy Smith, to move directly into today’s final after the first round of play-off matches.

Their fellow Olympic medallists Team Muirhead did likewise in the women’s competition, claiming a 6-3 win in their play-off encounter to maintain their week long 100 per cent record and send Team Smith into a semi-final against Team Fleming last night.

That match saw Hazel Smith, Sarah Reid, Claire Hammilton and Kerry Barr suffer a second disappointment as, having had to come through a tie-break on Thursday evening to earn the third of the play-off places, Hannah Fleming, Jen Dodds, Vicky Wright and Alice Spence produced their most impressive performance of the week.

On the back of a fine first season together they had made a stuttering start to the week, losing three of their first five matches, but

“We’re very pleased. That was quite a comfortable game for us,” said Fleming.

“It was quite right early on, but then we got a steal at the fourth end and then picked up a three to give ourselves a cushion.”

She knows they now face what must be considered the toughest challenge in the Scottish game, confronting Eve Muirhead, who is aiming for a seventh title, having been denied just once in recent years when the competition was held at the same time as she was competing at the Sochi Olympics.

However Team Fleming’s form had been such ahead of the event that there was a sense that Muirhead might face more of a challenge than has tended to be the case in recent years.

“Our goal was to get to the final and we’re hoping to give Eve a really good game tomorrow,” said Fleming.

“That was our best game of the week so far, so we can hopefully carry that forward into the final.”

Fleming expressed satisfaction at the way things have gone throughout this first campaign together.

“We’ve had a great season and as a new team we’ve done as much as we probably could have,” she said.

However she was more than happy to accept that the odds are heavily against her team in heaping the pressure onto the world number five ranked team, adding: “We’re definitely the underdogs, but we have nothing to lose and they have everything to lose so we’re just going to go in tomorrow, try to play the way we know we can and we know if we do that we can give them a good game.”

The women’s final gets underway at 11 am, with the men’s encounter taking to the ice at 4pm.