MUIRHEAD’S WOMEN SUFFER SETBACK WITH LOSS TO CANADA

Team GB will need to win their last three matches in the round-robin phase of the women’s competition at the Winter Olympics in Beijing after suffering a 7-3 defeat to the Canadian rink skipped by 47-year-old former Olympic champion Jennifer Jones.

The British team of Eve Muirhead, Vicky Wright, Jen Dodds and Hailey Duff must now look to win their next match against Japan - another of the play-off contenders - in a re-match of the 2018 Olympic bronze medal decider, then go on to beat China and Russia in their last two matches, while hoping that other results work out favourably.

The Team GB skip consequently admitted that they have little or no room for manoeuvre.

“The curling gods are not always with you, but let’s hope for our last three games that we play well. We know we have to do and we have tough opposition still, but we know that is in our own hands,” said Muirhead.

“Three losses is a good mark, four and who knows, but we take every game now as if it’s the last game, as if it’s the final and that gives us good focus and concentration.

“I’ve been in this position a lot of times, knowing that you’ve got to win the rest of your matches. We just need to learn from our mistakes, but also from what we did well. I think sometimes we forget what we do well. 

“Tomorrow we just need to take every end at a time and all of us just need to re-focus and try to forget about tonight. It’s hard just to do that, but I think we’re capable of doing that and that we’re capable of coming out and winning our last three.”

Earning the right to start with the hammer had seemed to augur well for Team GB, but they failed to take advantage of the resultant last stone advantage when they got themselves into difficulties and left their skip with a difficult double take out with her last shot and she managed to remove just one of the target stones.

Two of the next three ends were blanked, with the British women forced to accept a single in between times and they found themselves in real trouble at the midway break after Jones was left with a double takeout for a three at the fifth end, which she duly delivered.

That was to prove the only multiple score of the match as the Canadians controlled the scoreboard with singles exchanged at each of the next four ends, Jones extinguishing the last glimmer of hope for Team GB with a well weighted raise at the ninth end to take a three shot lead down the last where they ran their opponents out of stones.

“Canada were good tonight. You take your hats off to those guys, you’re never going to get an easy game against them and she played a fantastic shot for her three at the fifth,” said Muirhead.

However, the British team must now try to emulate the way the Canadians played with their backs to the wall having already lost three of their matches before this encounter.

“It was always going to be a tough game. They were on fire. They needed to win and when you’re playing against teams like that they maybe just step it up that little bit more, but that’s us tomorrow of course, so we’ll come out with a lot of fire and hopefully get the win.”

She knows that the Japanese will be strong opponents, though.

“I’ve played her many times and they were on a bit of a run here until they just got beaten tonight by Korea,” said Muirhead. 

“They are beatable, we know that, but we need to be very sharp, we need to be very clinical out there and get our stones in really good spots to make it difficult for them.”