Having looked to have the upper hand most of the way through, Scotland’s defending champions suffered an 8-7 defeat at the hands of Germany in their only match of the fourth day at the LGT World Men’s Curling Championships.
While they started without the hammer and last stone advantage Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan looked to be in complete control early on in the Schaffhausen arena after a steal of two at the fourth end put them 4-1 ahead.
Their opponents responded well to claim their two at the fifth end and close the game heading into the midway break, but Scotland looked set to establish total control at the next with stones all round the button as skip Mouat delivered his first stone.
It slipped slightly further than planned, however, leaving a shoulder for German skip Marc Muskatewitz to work off and he used it perfectly to hit and roll onto the button and Mouat was unable to shift it with his last. 
With the scores level at 4-4, the teams exchanged twos at the next two ends, before the Scots were forced to take just one at the ninth end and they were unable to prevent their opponents scoring the two at the last that secured the win.
“That was quite a frustrating one,” Mouat admitted, accepting that the turn-around of fortunes at the sixth had been crucial.
“It felt like we had a set up a really good end and then my first one finished in the worst possible spot that I could have put it, so we’ll learn from that and move on.
“We still had our chances in the game after that, but just missed a few key shots that could have won us the game.”
He remains satisfied with the team’s overall form at this stage of the competition, however.
“We’ve still got some tough games to play, but we’re still playing pretty well, setting up some really good ends and we just need to make every shot to see them through,” said Mouat.
“It’s just a disappointing game to come off on a one game day, but we’ll bounce back tomorrow morning.”
The first of their matches is against Czechia, who have performed well throughout the event so far, claiming three wins and pushing title contenders Canada, Italy and Sweden close while, after two one-game days, the Scots then face Japan later in the day.
“The Czechs seem to be playing pretty well, so we’re going to have to be on our game,” Mouat acknowledged.
“It’ll be nice to get back into the flow of the competition in the next couple of days.
“The last two days have been a little bit stretched out, just because it’s one game a day, so we’re looking forward to having two again tomorrow after a tough loss there.”
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03/04/2024
Scotland v Japan
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
Scotland – New Zealand 8-2
Tuesday 2 April
Session 10
Scotland –Germany 7-8
Wednesday 3 April
Session 12 – 08.00
Scotland – Czechia
Session 14- 18.00
Scotland –Japan
Thursday 4 April
Session 15 – 08.00
Scotland –Netherlands
Session 17 – 18.00
Scotland - Switzerland
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
Images: World Curling
