MOUAT’S MEN CRUISE PAST DENMARK TO MOVE TO CLEAR SECOND IN STANDINGS

Team GB’s men registered a comfortable win over win-less Denmark to strengthen their position in the race to the Winter Olympic semi-finals as Switzerland suffered a surprise defeat to Italy, the other team that had previously failed to win a match.

However, with the round-robin phase just passing the halfway stage, the British skip remains acutely aware that there is considerable work to do before they can start thinking about the knockout stages.

“We’ve got a lot of teams that are probably going to be in the top half of the field,” said Mouat.

“The Swiss game tomorrow will be a very big one. If we come out and play like we’re doing right now I think it’ll be a really close game, but I’m hoping we can get that win and that it settles us into a really good round-robin.” 

He and Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan having come into the event as the top ranked team on the World Curling Tour, he rated their performance to date, in achieving a record of four wins and one loss as worthy of “eight out 10,” but deemed himself reasonably satisfied.

“We’ve played quite a few games now, so we’re in a good spot and we’re really settled in and playing really well,” he said.

“We had a really good start against Italy, having to fight back after giving up a few points to Italy at the first end got us into a really good rhythm.

“We had to shoot well against the USA, which we didn’t really do and that gave them a win, but we’ve bounced back really well after that. The game against Norway got us into a good flow and the last three games have been really solid.”

He admitted, however, that the loss to the USA, the current Olympic champions, represented something of a warning.

“The US are a very talented team, but so are we,” he observed.

“We put in a lot of work, really trying to get that win, but it’s the Olympic Games, so you’re really not expected to win every game.

“You want to win the ones that are really important and those that are coming up tomorrow and the next three or four days are very important, so we really need to focus.”

Such is the rhythm of curling events, they have been able to keep something of an eye on their rivals, including Sweden’s five-time World Champions skipped by Niklas Edin, whom the British quartet have met in three major finals, prevailing both times at the European Championship, but losing to them in last year’s World Championships.

While it was seem natural that they might hope that such rivals might be made to struggle, Mouat knows that if his team can win all their remaining matches, including their clash with Sweden on the last day of the round-robin, they would finish top of the standings if the currently unbeaten Swedes have won all their matches to that point.

“It’s quite easy to watch all the other teams, because they’re all quite close to you and Niklas had a really close game against the Norwegians earlier,” Mouat noted.

“We were watching to see if they were going to win that. We weren’t really sure what result we wanted because if Niklas wins through and then we beat them that would mean we would be in top spot if we win all our games. A lot of teams beating each other can get risky, so ideally we’ll run our table from here and see what everyone else is going to sit on.

“The game against the Swedes is always a good one. We’ve played them a lot on tour, but they’re very experienced when it comes to the Olympics, so it’s nice to play them at the end when we’ll have a level playing field of experience here.” 

While Mouat was also full of respect for Sweden’s Scandinavian neighbours Denmark ahead of their match, that encounter proved very comfortable after Team GB won the hammer, making that last stone advantage count at the opening end as they claimed a two.

Following a blanked second end, they then stole two more to move 4-0 in front after leaving Danish skip Mikkel Krause with an opportunity for nothing more than damage limitation with his last stone as he faced three British counters and was able to remove only one.

They maintained a vice like grip from that point, allowing the Danes to score singles at just two ends, before Mouat delivered the coup de grace at the eighth end where, after Krause had played a quality draw to the button to try to get his team out of trouble, the British skip worked his stone round a guard with just sufficient pace to promote his second stone onto his opposite number’s, lie three and complete an 8-2 win.