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This qualifying competition for the 'B' Division Championships, being held in Glasgow in November, is being held in Ljubljana, Slovenia from today until Sunday 1 May. Both the Men's and Women's teams from Ireland are taking part in this and will hopefully interest a few of you. The top two teams in each competition will be promoted to the 'B' Division.

The 8 competing nations in the Women's competition are Austria, Belarus, Croatia, Spain, Ireland, Lithuania, Romania and Slovenia and Ireland's team is Clare McCormick (lead), Hazel Gormley-Leahy (second), Katie Kerr (third) and Ailsa Anderson (skip). They have already played Romania this afternoon, but I can find no trace of the result. Perhaps by tomorrow, it will be up on the website.   Tomorrow they play Croatia and Lithuania.

The 11 teams in the Men's competition are - Andorra, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, France, Ireland, Iceland, Luxembourg, Romania and Serbia. Representing Ireland are Tom Roche (lead), Bob Sherrard (second), Alan Mitchell (third) and Andrew Gilmore (skip), who start off their competition tomorrow with games against Serbia and Estonia.

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Today's scores
Women
Romania 5 v 9 Ireland - Ireland scored 4 shots in the first end and kept the game tight after that.
Men
Ireland 8 v 4 Serbia - again the Irish scored a 4 in the first end and ran out comfortable winners.
Ireland 3 v Estonia 10 -  Ireland were doing well early on in the second game, but lost a 5 in the sixth end - game over.

Tomorrow's games
Women - Croatia v Ireland; Lithuania v Ireland: - I don't even know which day of the week it is!
Men - Croatia v Ireland; Ireland v Bulgaria:

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Today's results

Women - Croatia 10 v 9 Ireland; Lithuania 6 v 5 Ireland:
Ireland have now played 3 and won 1 and are in 6th place.

Men - Croatia 3 v 8 Ireland; Ireland 4 v 6 Bulgaria:
The Irish men have played 4 and won 2 which leaves them in 7th place.

Tomorrow's games

Women - Ireland v Spain and Ireland v Slovenia.
According to the website, Ireland also play Belarus tomorrow before their game against Slovenia will have finished. Considering it also shows Game 5 is played before Game 4, I'm inclined to think that the website is ever-so-slightly cock-eyed and the game against Belarus will be on Friday, but you never know.

Men - Ireland v France and Luxembourg v Ireland.

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Today's results

Women - Ireland 5 v 10 Slovenia.

Men - Ireland 6 v 3 France and Luxembourg 8 v 9 Ireland.

Remaining games


Women - According to the website, Ireland have still to play Belarus tonight in Game 6, Spain tomorrow in Game 5 and Austria on Saturday in Game 7. Just like the organisers, they seem to have little chance of getting it right and will need to win all three games to qualify.

Men - Ireland are due to play Andorra and Romania tomorrow and Belarus and Iceland on Saturday. With their two wins today, Ireland have a good chance of qualifying in the top four and are currently in third place with 4 wins and 2 losses. The top four teams will play off for the final positions on Sunday with the top two qualifying for the 'B' Championships in November.

Apologies - I'll post the final standings at some stage over the weekend, as my social diary is rather full this weekend. I'm going to a retiral do tomorrow night (mine!), a wedding anniversary dinner tomorrow (mine again!) and the Hibs v QOTS match on Sunday.

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Remaining round-robin results

Women - Ireland 1 v 10 Spain; Ireland 3 v 8 Belarus; Ireland 5 v 13 Austria: The Irish women's team have had a tough week, and finished with only 1 win.

Final Standings
GOLD - Belarus + Promotion to 'B' Division
SILVER - Austria + Promotion to 'B' Division
BRONZE - Lithuania

Men - Ireland 12 v 1 Andorra; Ireland 10 v 4 Romania; Ireland 4 v 6 Belarus; Ireland 8 v 5 Iceland: These three wins lifted Ireland into fourth place with seven wins in total.
3v4 match - Ireland 9 v 6 Bulgaria (after an extra end)
Qualifying game - Ireland 6 v 7 France - unfortunately Ireland just missed out on promotion to the 'B' Division Finals at Braehead, Glasgow in November, but they did have the consolation of finishing third in the competition.

Final Standings
GOLD - Estonia + Promotion to 'B' Division
SILVER - France + Promotion to 'B' Division
BRONZE - Ireland


IRELAND - Tom Roche, Bob Sherrard, Alan Mitchell, Andrew Gilmore.

With my thanks to the Irish Curling Association website, whose reports gave me the results and the photograph. 

That's it for another season until it all starts up again in November. Have a good summer everyone.