Skip Eve Muirhead felt she and her Scottish teammates had responded better to the problems being caused by on-ice conditions at the Olympic Qualification Event in the Netherlands, but acknowledged that they must continue to improve if they are to earn a place for Team GB at next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing after an 8-4 defeat at the hands of Korea’s 2018 Winter Olympic silver medallists.
As they had done ahead of their previous matches, Muirhead, Vicky Wright, Jen Dodds and Hailey Duff went into the opening end with the upper hand after winning the pre-match last stone draw, but again failed to capitalise against Korea. 
Having conceded steals at the first end on the way to beating the Czech Republic, then on the way to losing to Turkey, they blanked the opener this time around, but then got into difficulties at the second where, facing three counting Korean stones with her final stone and there was clear shock among the Scots as her attempt to draw, which the sweepers initially thought was on target, drew up short of the rings.
At the third end, a perfectly judged freeze by the Korean skip with her first stone negated what had looked a promising position and Muirhead was unable to draw through a narrow port with her final stone in a bid to score two, so had to settle for trailing 3-1 without the hammer.
While they managed to apply some pressure, lying two as Korean skip Kim Eun-jung played her final stone at the fourth, the Korean skip was up to it, playing the take-out required to re-establish her team’s three shot advantage.
Muirhead’s perfectly weighted draw, with only the edge of the button available, registered a two at the sixth end to gain a foothold in the match, but the next two ends saw both teams forced to take ones and, 6-4 down at the final end, the Scottish skip was unable to pull off an attempt at an unlikely angled double with her final stone. 
Afterwards she acknowledged that they had been up against it from the second end onwards.
“I came up short with that draw against three in the second end and that put us on the back foot,” she said.
“We just got caught out a little bit on the speeds there and hitting the slide path.”
Overall, however, she felt there were signs of progress in terms of dealing with the challenges they are confronting and they are looking to build on that ahead of their meeting with the only unbeaten team in the competition.
“We did adapt to the very tough, straight conditions quicker today, but we still need to do better with that and hopefully we’ll do that tonight against Japan,” she said.
Scotland meet Japan at 1800hrs tonight and the match will be available on the Recast platform - https://share.recast.app/v/5zrQX?referrer=64jxA
Scotland Team (Qualifying Team GB for Beijing 2022)
Eve Muirhead
Vicky Wright
Jen Dodds
Hailey Duff
Mili Smith
Schedule:
Saturday 11 December
0800 – Session 1
Scotland v Czech Republic 7-5
Sunday 12 December
1300 – Session 3
Scotland v Turkey 3-7
Monday 13 December
0800- Session 4
Scotland v Korea 4-8
1800 – Session 5
Scotland v Japan
Tuesday 14 December 
1300 – Session 6
Scotland v Germany
Wednesday 15 December
0800 – Session 7
Scotland v Estonia
1800 – Session 8
Scotland v Latvia
Thursday 16 December
1300 – Session 9
Scotland v Italy
Friday 17 December
0900 Play-off Session 1
Saturday 18 December
0900 Play-off Session 2
Images: WCF/Celine Stucki
#curling #OQE2021 #Roadto2022
