A relentless display of quality curling saw Team Paterson further improve their position in the standings at the LGT World Men’s Curling Championships, moving into outright second place with a fifth straight win on the fifth day of action.
A 6-0 victory over the Czech Republic in their only match of the day, followed by a defeat for defending champions Sweden at the hands of Korea in the later round of matches, means their record of six wins and two losses is bettered only by Canada, who have won seven out of eight.
Their encounter with the Czechs was unusual in that they lost out in the pre-match draw shot challenge so conceded the hammer at the opening end, but such was their superiority from that point that they shut their opponents out with a steady stream of steals, scoring singles at the second, fourth, seventh and eighth ends, before a two at the ninth brought the concession. 
“It was a dominant performance,” said Ross Paterson, after delivering the coup de grace with a draw that left Czech skip Lukas Klima with a near impossible double take out to keep the match alive at the ninth end.
“We’ve been good at the (pre-match) last stone draw for the majority of the event, but we didn’t win it this time, so didn’t have the hammer at the start of this game, but we managed to get an early steal.”
Thereafter he was delighted with the tactical nous shown by the team, in particular the way the front end combination of Craig Waddell and Duncan Menzies laid the foundations for the win.
“At the second and fourth ends we forced their skip to play out-turn draws and he was heavy twice which gave us a lead and we knew then that we just wanted to control the game,” said Paterson.
“They didn’t really take us on at too many points and I felt the set-up from the team, with the front end guys playing really well now, made things a little bit easier for me and Kyle (Waddell).
“That was really encouraging and I’m really confident that those boys will play as well as they have been in the closing games in the round-robin.
“So, looking at the game, the scoring might have been a little bit strange, but that was down to our shot placement and our set-up play putting them under pressure throughout the ends and they couldn’t really finish anything off.
“There were a couple of times I had to get draws into good places to make him face tricky draws and he didn’t make them, so it was just about concentrating on ourselves and getting the most out of every shot.”
With their next game against the Netherlands, who have won just one of their eight matches, ahead of what always looked like being a tough finish to the round-robin as they meet Sweden later in the day then, on the final day ahead of the play-offs, the Canadians and the Swiss, who are currently in a share of fourth spot and very much in contention for those knockout stages, Paterson is pleased with the way they have continued to improve. 
“Set-up was one thing we’d identified coming into this game as an area we wanted to improve on a little bit and we certainly did that, so it’s really encouraging going into tomorrow,” he said,
“We’ve got two games back-to-back against the Netherlands and Sweden tomorrow, so we’re still focussing on trying to improve a little bit game on game and it feels like we’re doing that.
“If we can keep improving little margins each game, then we could be hard to beat, so everybody’s feeling in a pretty good place now and we want to keep on having good days if we can.”
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-2L
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
Scotland – Sweden
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
