Team Paterson’s five match winning run may have ended with a brace of defeats on day six of the at the LGT World Men’s Curling Championships, but they remain focused on the opportunity that still presents itself in Las Vegas.
Heading into the final day of round robin games with a record of six wins and four losses they remain in a share of third spot with six teams qualifying for the play-offs, but Ross Paterson, Kyle Waddell, Duncan Menzies and Craig Waddell know their position could have been even better.
“It’s been a disappointing day, but the most important thing is for us to re-group and pull together,” said Paterson. 
“We know that this is still within our own hands, which is where we wanted to be at the start of the week.
“We’ve got two games left in the round-robin, so our focus now is to finish strongly and get two wins on the board.
“We know they are tough games, but they are all tough games out here.”
The defeat in their opening match of day six to a Netherlands team that had won just one of its previous eight matches was a particular blow, not least because they looked to have everything under control in the first half of the match.
Starting with the hammer and scoring at three of the first four ends, including a steal at the second, to lead 3-1 at the midway break, but Paterson typically took responsibility for the error that ultimately allowed their opponents to turn the match around.
“We controlled 95 per cent of that game, but just didn’t quite get away from them,” he said of that 5-4 loss.
“The ice was tricky, a bit floaty and we were just on the wrong end of a few half shots, maybe on the wrong side of shots that we couldn’t be.
“At the last end I still had a thin double to force them and just didn’t make it which was disappointing.
“At this level you want to be making those shots and we didn’t, so we just have to take that on the chin.”
Facing Sweden’s defending and five-time world champions Team Edin was never going to be easy immediately after that and further errors contributed to an 8-2 defeat.
“Against Niklas again we just didn’t quite get on top of the ice conditions and gave him a couple of steals which you don’t want to do against a team like that,” said Paterson.
“You can’t give them any freebies and it felt like that’s probably what happened, so we’re trying not to get too disappointed right now, because it would be easy to get a negative head on, but we’re trying not to do that.” 
With four teams sharing third spot behind Canada and Sweden who have now secured play-off places one more win would probably be enough to see the Scots join them in the knockout stages.
However, Paterson said they are looking to finish in style against two of the strongest teams in Canada or Switzerland.
“We’re just trying to get some positive vibes into the team and come out tomorrow with that mindset that we’re solely focused on winning those games and if we do that we’ll be in a good spot,” he said.
“We’ve just got to go out now and show that we really want it.”
Team Scotland
Ross Paterson (vice-skip)
Kyle Waddell (skip)
Duncan Menzies
Craig Waddell
Euan Kyle (alternate)
Broadcast games on The Curling Channel in partnership with Recast
Tuesday 5 April
22:00 — Scotland v United States
Friday 8 April
17:00 — Scotland v Canada
Saturday 9 April
03:00 — Scotland v Switzerland
Saturday 9 April
22:00 — Qualification Games
22:00 — Qualification Game 2
03:00 — Semi-final 1
03:00 — Semi-final 2
Sunday 10 April
19:00 — Bronze medal game
00:00 midnight — Gold medal game
Schedule and results: 6W-3L
Saturday 2 April
Scotland – Italy 5-4
Sunday 3 April
Scotland – Korea 6-9
Scotland – Norway 4-7
Monday 4 April
Scotland – Denmark 7-3
Scotland – Germany 6-4
Tuesday 5 April
Scotland – USA 9-7
Scotland – Finland 10-5
Wednesday 6 April
Scotland – Czech Republic 6-0
Thursday 7 April
Scotland – Netherlands 4-5
Scotland – Sweden 2-8
Friday 8 April
Scotland – Canada
Scotland – Switzerland
Saturday 9 April
Qualifications games
Semi finals
Sunday 10 April
Bronze medal game
Gold medal game
#curling #WMCC2022
