A perfectly weighted take-out by Italian skip Joel Retornaz edged his team to victory over Scotland’s Team Mouat, but the host nation’s representatives remained on course for the play-offs as they continued their title defence at the Le Gruyere AOP European Curling Championships at Curl Aberdeen.
One of the most anticipated matches of the round-robin stages between Mouat’s World champions and the team that has just claimed top spot in the world rankings, lived up to its billing as the lead was exchanged five times, before the Italian skip produced that decisive blow, removing Mouat’s well-guarded shot stone from the button to lie two and secure a 6-5 win.
“It was a really good game and we’re pretty disappointed not go come away with the win,” Mouat said afterwards. 
“I felt like we’d played pretty well to get to that point and have a lead going into the last end, but we couldn’t prevent them getting that two.”
It was a result which continued Italy’s unbeaten run, confirmed their spot in the semi-finals and made them odds-on favourites to finish top of the standings.
Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan meanwhile now face three more matches, against the Netherlands, Turkiye and Finland, needing to win them all to have a chance of having last stone advantage should they reach the semi-final, but they know their form is sufficient to keep them in contention for a fourth victory in four appearances at the Euros.
“Italy are on a really good streak of form right now and we know what we’re going to have to do to beat them if we do end up playing them again,” said Mouat.
“We’re throwing it quite well and working well together, though, so we’re excited to see what we can do in the rest of the round-robin and hopefully that leads into the play-offs for us.
“We’ve got some tough games still to go, so we’ll try to keep the momentum going and then see who we come up against in the play-offs if we win those next three games.”
The top eight men’s and women’s teams at these Championships, which take place from November 18-25 will qualify for the World Championships later this season.
The BKT Tires World Women’s Curling Championship 2024 will be hosted in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada in March 2024 and the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship 2024 will take place in Schaffhausen, Switzerland in April 2024.
Games will be broadcast on Recast available on The Curling Channel
The following games will be available on the BBC Sport website, app and BBC iPlayer.
Tuesday 21 November
Scotland women v Germany (0900) & Switzerland (1900)
Wednesday 22 November
Scotland men v Netherlands (0900)
Thursday 23 November
Scotland women v Norway (0900)
Play-offs and medal matches - TBC.
Scotland Schedule:
Saturday 18 November
Women’s Round Robin Session 1
Scotland v Turkiye 8-4
Men’s Round Robin Session 1
Scotland v Norway 5-3
Women’s Round Robin Session 2
Scotland v Denmark 9-11
Sunday 19 November
Men’s Round Robin Session 2
Scotland v Sweden 5-8
Women’s Round Robin Session 3
Scotland v Italy 6-7
Men’s Round Robin Session 3
Scotland v Czechia 6-5
Monday 20 November
Women’s Round Robin Session 4
Scotland v Czechia 8-1
Men’s Round Robin Session 4
Scotland v Switzerland 9-6
Women’s Round Robin Session 5
Scotland v Sweden 9-7
Men’s Round Robin Session 5
Scotland v Germany 8-2
Tuesday 21 November
Women’s Round Robin Session 6
Scotland v Germany 5-3
Men’s Round Robin Session 6 – 14.00
Scotland v Italy 6-7
Women’s Round Robin Session 7 – 19.00
Scotland v Switzerland
Wednesday 22 November
Men’s Round Robin Session 7 – 09.00
Scotland v Netherlands
Women’s Round Robin Session 8 – 14.00
Scotland v Estonia
Men’s Round Robin Session 8 – 19.00
Scotland v Turkiye
Thursday 23 November
Women’s Round Robin Session 9 – 09.00
Scotland v Norway
Men’s Round Robin Session 9 – 14.00
Scotland v Finland
Women’s Semi Finals – 19.00
Friday 24 November
Men’s Semi Finals – 09.00
Women’s Bronze Medal Game – 14.00
Men’s Bronze Medal Game – 19.00
Saturday 25 November
Women’s Gold Medal Game – 09.00
Men’s Gold Medal Game – 14.00
Scotland Women
Rebecca Morrison
Jennifer Dodds
Gina Aitken
Sophie Jackson
Sophie Sinclair
Coach: Ross Paterson
Scotland Men
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Kyle Waddell
Coach: Michael Goodfellow
#curling #ECC2023
Image: WCF
