Hard fought wins over the Netherlands and, after an extra end, hosts Switzerland took Scotland’s defending champions into the knockout stages of the LGT World Men’s Curling Championships on the sixth day of action.
“Those were two really big games to qualify us for the playoffs, which is huge,” said skip Bruce Mouat.
“We’re very excited to see where we end up in the round-robin now and hopefully somehow qualify for the semis, although I’m not sure if that’s likely.”
Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan had gone into the day knowing victories in both games would be enough to ensure the required top six finish that ensured playoff involvement and they went into the first of them as firm favourites against the Dutch.
Their failure to win the draw shot contest and last stone advantage meant they had to work for their win and they went into the midway break 2-1 down. 
On the resumption a three at the sixth end put them in control, however and they managed the game well from that point running out 6-3 winners, to set up a crucial meeting with the Swiss who had suffered a damaging defeat to Italy earlier in the day.
The Scots made an ideal start, this time winning the draw shot so having that last stone at the first where they capitalised on mistakes by their opponents to score a three.
That was a useful advantage, but with the ice having been tricky in the Schaffhausen arena throughout the week, they were unable to use it to take control as they might normally expect to.
Conditions did not prevent either team from making a string of superb shots from that point and with the home crowd behind them the confidence of the Swiss grew visibly as they narrowed the gap with a two at the fourth end, then registered a three at the sixth to move into a lead that had looked unlikely when they suffered that early setback.
A blanked seventh end then seemed to favour the Scots, but Mouat was subsequently forced into making an extraordinary draw through the narrowest of ports, which rubbed the Swiss shot stone on the way to out-counting it, to keep his team in the match by levelling things at the eighth end.
It remained tight throughout the next two ends as the Scots stole at the ninth to move back in front, while their opponents were again unable to make last stone advantage count, scoring just one to take the match into extra time.
Scotland set that end up well, but it was still a nervy finish and while the last Swiss stone did not finish exactly where it was intended, Mouat still had to be extremely precise in hitting it onto another Swiss stone that was sitting closest to the pin, but nervelessly got the job done.
“It was tough going,” Mouat admitted.
“We got the jump in the early ends, but then started to struggle a wee bit with the ice which was getting frosty again, so it was difficult to keep on top of all the paths out there.
“The draw in eight was pretty important just to keep ourselves in the game.
“We’d had a pretty tough middle section of the game, so that was a bit of a turning point, making that draw to put the pressure back on the Swiss boys.”
“Those kind of games are always pretty tough when we’re both fighting to qualify for the playoffs and not only that, but position.
“Winning that game is pretty good for us in terms of our chances of having the hammer in the playoffs which has been quite important this week.”
Following unbeaten Sweden’s defeat of Canada in the same round of matches, those two now look likely to finish in the top two spots since Canada and Scotland currently have identical records in joint second spot but, should it stay that way, the first tie-breaker would be the head-to-head encounter which was won by the Canadians.
Team Mouat have no shortage of incentive heading into the last day, though, since their final match could provide a chance to end the Swedes' 100% round-robin record, albeit Mouat is fully focused on their meeting with Norway earlier in the day.
“We’ve got a tough finish to our round-robin, so we’re kind of treating it like the playoffs and trying to win out to see if we can get a semi-final spot,” he said.
“I’m not sure if that’s still available, but we’re just trying to get as high ranked as possible.
“We’ve played Norway a few times this season and we know just how good they are, so we’re going to have to try to find another gear I think, because we’ve not reached top gear yet, so we have to see what we can do against the two Scandinavians tomorrow.”
Please click here for LIVE streaming of games on The Curling Channel
Selected games are also available on the BBC iPlayer, BBC Scotland website and app
The next game will be:
05/04/2024
Scotland v Sweden
Please click here for more event information and results
Scotland Team
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Kyle Waddell (alternate)
Team Coach Michael Goodfellow
Olympic Head Coach Greg Drummond
Schedule (GMT/BST) & Results
Saturday 30 March
Session 1
Scotland – Korea 10-3
Session 2
Scotland – USA 10-3
Sunday 31 March
Session 4
Scotland – Canada 4-8
Session 5
Scotland – Italy 8-3
Monday 1 April
Session 7 – 13.00
Scotland – New Zealand 8-2
Tuesday 2 April
Session 10 – 13.00
Scotland –Germany 7-8
Wednesday 3 April
Session 12
Scotland – Czechia 6-3
Session 14
Scotland –Japan 7-5
Thursday 4 April
Session 15
Scotland –Netherlands 6-3
Session 17
Scotland – Switzerland 8-7 (EE)
Friday 5 April
Session 18 – 08.00
Scotland –Norway
Session 20-18.00
Scotland –Sweden
Saturday 6 April
09.00
Qualification
15.00
Semi Finals
Sunday 7 April
09.00
Bronze Medal Game
14.00
Gold Medal Game
Image: World Curling 