After his team claimed their third victory of the event on the final day of round-robin action, Scotland skip Hugh Nibloe promised that he and his teammates would learn from a challenging week at the SD Biosensor World Wheelchair Championships in Korea.
Their impressive 8-4 win against Slovakia was followed by a performance which in many ways summed up their overall efforts as they left themselves too much to do against reigning Paralympic and World champions China.
Their bid to fight back from an early 6-0 deficit always seemed destined to fall short against such quality opposition, but Nibloe reckoned that the way they finished the competition after losing their first six matches in the Gangneung Curling Centre offered promise for the future.
“We came out really strongly against Slovakia today, got out in front then kept pegging them back and made them make the difficult shots,” he said.
“It was a really strong performance and the team played really well.
“That’s the kind of performance we’ve been showing glimpses of this week.
“If you can string those performances together consistently you’ll be in play-offs and possibly medal games, but unfortunately for us there have been too few of those and too far in between over the week.
“Against China we started the first end really well, but they started even better and we missed a couple of shots, so left Gregor a tough one to finish and he just finished on the wrong side which gave them a big start. 
“We had to be super aggressive after that which didn’t pay off immediately, losing the two at the second end, but after that we started giving them a bit of a game of it.
“When we got it back to 6-4 I think we had them a little worried and we showed potentially what we’re capable of against arguably the strongest team in the world.
“We’ll find out this weekend if they still are, but again we showed signs, just not for long enough or a consistent enough period.”
The 42-year-old from Stranraer, who has competed in seven World Championships, winning a silver and two bronze medals, as well as two Winter Paralympics, was particularly pleased with the way he and teammates Gregor Ewan, Robert McPherson, Meggan Dawson-Farrell and Gary Smith, worked together in the face of adversity.
“The team spirit’s been really good all week,” he said.
“We’ve managed to stay positive throughout, despite things not going our way and on another week some of those results flip the other way and you’re looking at six or seven wins.
“To be fair we didn’t deserve to be anywhere near play-offs this year and finishing 10th, we can’t really argue with it.
“The table doesn’t lie at the end of the week.
“Reflecting on the event itself, we have learned some things this week.
“We always talk about winning and learning, rather than winning and losing and we’ve picked up a few things in particular on the team bonding side of things.
“Our communication was something we really improved on this week.”
An overall 10th place finish means the Scots will require to qualify for next year’s World Championships, but last year’s third place finish means they look set to have a valuable total of 13 qualifying points for the 2026 Winter Paralympics, pending confirmation from World Curling.
As they look to secure that qualification, Nibloe meanwhile feels that the input of fresh ideas from coach Luke Carson, who has joined the camp working under British Curling’s Paralympic Head Coach Sheila Swan, has been beneficial.
“We’ve had Luke with us this week bringing a couple of new tactical ideas that we’ll hopefully be developing and hopefully they’ll pay off for us once we fine tune them between Sheila and Luke and see what the team looks like going forward,” said Nibloe.
“It’s disappointing this week, but all our thoughts need to be on Milan/Cortina in 2026, more than medalling this time or even next year, although that’s always what you aim for.
“The big goal is to medal in 2026 and if this week has given us learnings to take forward for two years time then we can look back on it with some satisfaction.
“That’s what we’ve basically got to do going forward.
“This has to be the low point in the cycle and we need to start building back up after a great start last year, getting the bronze medals.
“Hopefully we’ll be at the Worlds next year and we’ll have enough points to then qualify Great Britain for Milan/Cortina and carry some sort of form into that to give ourselves a chance.”
As well as learning lessons about what they need to do internally, Nibloe also reckoned they had gained an excellent understanding of what is required to compete with the current leading teams.
“This week has shown though that everybody’s beatable,” he observed.
“I’ve never seen the round-robin with no out and out leader.
“Normally someone goes out there with an 11 and 0 or 10 and one record, but no-one’s done that.
“It’s been a tightly packed field and there are some teams picking up wins that shock you, so we know going forward that shot making’s our biggest thing and it’s got to be more consistent.
“If we can get that like we did against Canada, Estonia and Slovakia this morning, then we know we can be a good team.”
He also noted that after two of last year’s bronze medal winning team, Jo Butterfield and Gary Logan, were forced to withdraw this time around, increasing competition for places within the squad as the Paralympic Performance Foundation programme develops new talent will only improve their chances.
“We’ve also got the likes of Jo and Gary who have missed out this year because of illness and from the PPF programme hopefully more athletes will put their hands up in future to make the group stronger,” said Nibloe
“So it was a disappointing week, but we will take a lot from it and get our heads down and work hard.”
The team event at the Championships concludes with medal matches on March 9 and is then followed by the mixed doubles which take place from March 11-14 March, with home nations Scotland and England in a field of 21 teams.
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Scotland Team
Hugh Nibloe
Gregor Ewan
Robert McPherson
Meggan Dawson Farrell
Gary Smith (alternate)
Team Leader David Leith
Team Coach Luke Carson
Scotland Mixed Doubles Team
Charlotte McKenna
Gary Smith
Team Coach Niall Ryder
England Mixed Doubles Team
Stewart Pimblett
Karen Aspey
Team Coach Tony Lenton
Assistant Coach Rosemary Lenton
Schedule
Saturday 2 March
Session 1 – 5am (GMT)
Scotland – Latvia 5 - 6
Session 2 -10am (GMT)
Scotland – Norway 5 – 6 (EE)
Sunday 3 March
Session 4 – 5am (GMT)
Scotland – Italy 3-6
Monday 4 March
Session 6 – 12 midnight (GMT)
Scotland – Korea 2-6
Session 8 – 10am (GMT)
Scotland – Czechia 5-6
Tuesday 5 March
Session 9 - 12 midnight (GMT)
Scotland – USA 6-7
Session 11 – 10am (GMT)
Scotland – Canada 8-2
Wednesday 6 March
Session 13 – 5am (GMT)
Scotland – Estonia 6-4
Session 14 – 10am (GMT)
Scotland – Sweden 2-6
Thursday 7 March
Session 15 – 12 midnight (GMT)
Scotland – Slovakia 8-4
Session 16 – 5am (GMT)
Scotland – China 4-9
Friday 8 March
Qualifications – 5am (GMT)
Semi Finals – 10am (GMT)
Saturday 9 March
Final – 2am (GMT)
Image: WCF
