A YEAR out from the Winter Olympics the teams that earned half of Britain’s medals last time around could not have made their intentions of being in Pyeonchang any clearer as Team Muirhead and Team Murdoch added to their formidable title hauls at the Scottish Curling Championships in Perth yesterday.

The experiences of the two have been very different on the domestic front since Murdoch’s men reached the final in Sochi and Muirhead’s women won the bronze medal play-off.

The Murdoch team has been unchanged in the interim but has struggled for form, particularly against their local rivals, which means the World Championship in Canada that this success qualifies them for, will be the first time they have represented Scotland at a major championship since.

By contrast Muirhead has tweaked her line-up a couple of times, but all four of the current team were in Sochi, Lauren Gray who is now their lead having been their "alternate", namely the travelling reserve, when they won their Olympic medals. They have, though, been ever present at European and World Championships over the past few years and re-asserted themselves in earning what was their skip’s seventh Scottish title, by going unbeaten through the past week.

Their task is now to earn the qualifying points required to ensure that a GB women’s team will compete at next year Winter Olympics and ranked number five in the world, they have every reason to be confident of doing so.

“Every one of the seven titles feels as good as the last one,” said Muirhead, following their 6-4 over fast-improving Team Fleming in the final.

“It is a pretty special feeling taking the Scottish title so to win it again is great.

“We are a year out from the Olympics and this result shows that the changes we made before this season are the right ones. This year we took on a new coach Glenn Howard and a new lead in Lauren and it has been a positive experience for all of us and that has shown in the results we have had.

“As Team Muirhead we know we have a target on our backs, so we have to focus on one game at a time.

“We won’t change much ahead of the worlds, we have two weeks to get better, we will continue to train hard to make sure we are in the best possible place, there are a few little things we can improve on and do better.

“We treat every tournament as a stepping stone and now we are heading to the worlds it is first things first. To get the GB spot for the Olympics will be our first job when we are out there.”

The same task now falls to Murdoch but that had seemed unlikely for much of this season and even in the early part of the last week when a couple of losses put them under pressure in the round-robin qualifying stages.

They took charge of the final against Bruce Mouat’s World Junior champions from the outset, though, a count of four at the third end putting them in control and they ran out 10-4 winners with two ends to spare.

“I think this team likes a bit of pressure and we like to be really, challenged and we certainly were,” said Murdoch, who matched Muirhead by winning the title for a seventh time, albeit one of his was when Tom Brewster was skipping in 2013.

“We’ve had teams pushing us the whole week and for the last few years, but we’ve always believed and I’m proud of that.

“It’s been our goal to win this all season, but also for the last few years when we didn’t quite get over the line and we’ve put in a lot of hard work in what is such a crucial year as well.

“So we’ve timed it just great and our expectations are now to go to the World Championships and have a great week. That’s what we’re looking for, but we know how tough it is as well because the year before the Olympics is always the toughest World Championships because all the teams are generally at their best towards the end of the quadrennial.”

Bruce Mouat, the losing skip, has the consolation of a World Championship of his own to look forward to, in mixed doubles with Gina Aitken after they won the Scottish title for the fourth time in five years in December, but he was disappointed that he and his team-mates had not put up more resistance after playing impressively throughout the week.

“I am really chuffed we got this far in the tournament but I wish we’d put on a better show in the final,” he said.