Scotland’s Team Morrison got back on track with a fine win over hosts Sweden, led by 2018 Olympic winning skip Anna Hasselborg on the fourth day of action at the Le Gruyere European Curling Championships.
The match against one of the greatest players in the modern game provided the ideal opportunity to bounce back after Rebecca Morrison, Gina Aitken, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson had suffered the disappointment of back-to-back defeats and they showed great resilience to seize it as they came from behind in the latter stages of the match.
They had begun well, registering a steal of two at the second end after a blanked opener and while it looked as if the match was slipping away from them when Sweden scored two at the fourth, forced the Scots to take one at the fifth, then claimed a three immediately after the midway break, they never let their heads drop. 
A two at the seventh end then got them back into contention and dogged play generated further steals at the eighth and ninth ends to give them the upper hand heading down the last where they clinically played their opponents out of stones to wrap up a 7-5 win.
“It was a huge win for us this morning against Sweden to get to that three and two record at that stage,” said skip Morrison.
“That really put us in a good place after a tough day yesterday and it was really important in terms of getting us into play-off contention, getting a win over one of the teams that was in the middle of the standings.
“Those are going to be some of our key games this week, to try to scrape into those play-off positions.”
They were, however, unable to build immediately on that momentum in spite of making a promising start to their meeting with Germany later in the day when they stole at the opening end.
That advantage was immediately reversed when the Germans scored a two at the second and after a blanked third end, the crucial moment came when they then stole two at the fourth to move into a 4-1 lead which they built on to finish 7-5 winners.
“It started off as a really good game against Germany, but in the fourth end we just didn’t get the rocks in the right places, so it didn’t go our way at all,” said Morrison.
“That was a huge turning point. It just put us on the back foot from that point in the game and it was hard to get going a bit after that.
“It was a tough position for us to be in and we just didn’t close it off in the end.”
They now meet Switzerland’s reigning world champions Team Tirinzoni in their only match on day five and can take confidence from having beaten them previously, at last year’s Euro Super Series event in Stirling, as well as running them close on their only previous meeting this season at the Western Showdown in Canada. 
“We’re looking forward to that game. We’ve played them once this season and had a really tight game, so we’re just looking forward to what tomorrow’s going to bring and hopefully we can bring our A game and work our way up as high as we can in the standings,” said the skip.
In the men’s competition, Scotland’s Team Mouat powered to wins over the Czech Republic and Turkiye which mean they remain unbeaten after five of their nine round-robin matches as they seek to defend the title they won last year.
The European Championships qualify teams for next year’s World Curling Championships with the women’s event (LGT World Women’s Curling Championship 2023) also taking place in Sweden in March (18-26 March) and the men’s event (BKT Tires & OK Tire World Men’s Curling Championship) in Ottawa in April (1-9 April).
Men’s teams: Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Norway, Scotland, Spain (replacing Russia), Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.
Women’s teams: Denmark, Germany, Hungary (replacing Russia), Italy, Latvia, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.
Team Mouat
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
BobbyLammie
Hammy McMillan
Kyle Waddell (alternate)
Coach: Michael Goodfellow
Team Morrison
Rebecca Morrison
Gina Aitken
Sophie Sinclair
Sophie Jackson
Hailey Duff (alternate)
Coach: Nancy Smith
WCF European Champs
Schedule:
Friday 18 November
Women – session 1
Scotland v Turkiye 9-6
Saturday 19 November
Men – session 1
Scotland v Germany 6-4 (EE)
Women – session 2
Scotland v Latvia 7-4
Men - session 2
Scotland v Spain 10-4
Sunday 20 November
Women – session 3
Scotland v Italy 4-10
Men – session 3
Scotland v Sweden 8-7
Women – session 4
Scotland v Denmark 6-11
Monday 21 November
Men – session 4
Scotland v Czech Republic 11-6
Women – session 5
Scotland v Sweden 7-5
Men – session 5
Scotland v Turkiye 10-4
Women – session 6
Scotland v Germany 3-9
Tuesday 22 November
Men session 6 – 09.00/08.00 GMT
Scotland v Denmark
Women session 7 – 14.00/13.00 GMT
Scotland v Switzerland (broadcast game)*
Men session 7 – 19.00/18.00 GMT
Scotland v Norway
Wednesday 23 November
Women session 8 – 09.00/08.00 GMT
Scotland v Hungary
Men session 8 – 14.00/13.00 GMT
Scotland v Switzerland (broadcast game)*
Women session 9 – 19.00/18.00 GMT
Scotland v Norway
Thursday 24 November
Men session 9 – 08.00/07.00 GMT
Scotland v Italy
Women semi final 1 – 12.00/11.00 GMT (broadcast game)*
Women semi final 2 – 16.00/15.00 GMT (broadcast game)*
Men semi final 1- 20.00/19.00 GMT (broadcast game)*
Friday 25 November
Men semi final 2 – 09.00/08.00 GMT (broadcast game)*
Women bronze medal game – 14.00/13.00 GMT(broadcast game)*
Men bronze medal game – 19.00/18.00 GMT(broadcast game)*
Saturday 26 November
Women gold medal game 09.00/08.00 GMT(broadcast game)*
Men gold medal game 13.00/12.00 GMT(broadcast game)*
Image: WCF / Celine Stucki & Ansis Ventins
