MOUAT’S MEN BACK ON TRACK AFTER POWERFUL PERFORMANCE AGAINST NORWAY

Team GB’s men returned to top form with a commanding performance in beating Norway 8-3 in seven ends to move into a share of third spot in the standings with the USA’s defending Olympic champions who had beaten them earlier in the day.

Up against another veteran campaigner in Torger Nergaard, the Norwegian third who is setting a record for a curler at these Games by becoming the first to compete at six Olympics, they knew they could take nothing for granted.

It certainly looked early on as if it might be a close run affair when 0.7 of a centimetre separated the teams in the pre-match draw shot challenge which saw Team GB earn the hammer, while both teams were forced at each of the first two ends. 

However relentless British pressure over the next two ends saw Bruce Mouat’s men establish a two shot lead at the third end, after an attempted takeout from Nergaard missed everything.

They then took a grip on proceedings when, with a British stone wedged between two of Norwegian ones, their skip Stefan Walstad felt he had to attempt a high risk angled raise on a wing guard with his final shot, only to make a bad situation for his team worse as he conceded two more.

After forcing the Norwegians to take just a single at the next, they took a 4-2 lead into the break, then all but finished the contest off as they resumed, precision play forcing Walstad to take another chance with his first stone, only succeeding this time in creating angles that allowed Mouat to ensure that he had all the angles covered. The Norwegian skip did as well as he could to challenge his rival with a hit and roll onto the button, but Mouat’s raise of his own stone to remove it left his team lying three.

A force at the seventh end was consequently enough and the concession was made at that point.

“They’re a really good side, so you always have to be careful,” said Mouat.

“They obviously took on a pretty tough shot in the fourth end. Sometimes you make those shots and sometimes you don’t, so we were pretty fortunate that this time it didn’t come off for them.

“I wouldn’t say we won the game there, but that gave us the advantage and we built on it at the next few ends where we forced them, then managed to get the three and were playing pretty well and pretty clinical, so I’m proud of how the boys came out and bounced back.”

Having been in non-stop competitive action since three days before the official opening of the Games, the Mixed Doubles having begun early, Mouat will finally get some decent recovery time tomorrow, since the British men have a day off.

“It should be pretty nice to just have a long lie and not have to worry about coming in and getting prepped, but I’m looking forward to getting back in here on Sunday,” he said.

That is partly because he feels they are showing signs of finding the form that has taken them to top spot in the current world rankings.

“I think our first game against Italy was really good and it was really exciting to be back on the ice in our first game here as a team,” he said.

“They played really well and we managed to win, but we still had a few things to iron out and some of them didn’t come across against the US this morning, so this game was really important to iron out those kinks and it felt really good that we were shooting on all cylinders. All four of us played really well and those games are exactly what you want at the Olympics.

“The intensity we brought tonight was exactly what we need for all the other games we’ve got coming up.”

Once their Saturday off is complete it will be busy for the rest of the round-robin and hopefully come the play-offs, but they are ready for that. 

“We’re used to two game days at the World and European Championships. We’ve played a lot of these events now and we know what it’s like to do that,” said Mouat.

“On the World Curling Tour we play three or four games in some of the events, so two is pretty easy to get yourself up for and I’m not nervous about the guys’ fitness for being able to sweep two games in one day.”