A commanding 6-1 victory for Scotland in the teams’ first meeting since Germany’s shock win in the European Championship final has seen Scotland’s world number one ranked Team Mouat become just the second team to secure a place in the play-offs at the BKT World Men’s Championship in Saskatchewan.
With one of their most impressive performances of the week, Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan were in charge from the opening end.
Starting with the hammer (last stone advantage), they held their nerve when Germany had the only three stones in the house early on and gradually worked the situation to their advantage before setting up the chance for their skip to make a delicate takeout for a three.
It could hardly have been more closely fought over the next five ends, three of which were blanked, but crucially the Scots stole at the fourth to establish a 4-0 lead and after forcing the Germans to score just one at the sixth, they got their two at the seventh to draw the concession.
The quality of their play was as satisfying as the win itself as they looked to generate momentum heading into the knockout stages on the back of a hard-working win over the USA the previous evening.
“We’re very happy with that performance,” said Mouat.
“We wanted the game from yesterday to fuel the run that we’re hoping to achieve and we think that’s a great start to it.”
With hosts Canada having already secured one of the top two places that bring direct qualification for the semi-finals, defeat for defending champions Sweden at the hands of Italy in the same round of matches boosted Scotland’s chances of claiming the second.
However, they finish with a meeting with China, one of three teams that could still go past them in that contest, so know they must play as well again to have a real chance, but seeing the letter Q alongside their name denoting that they have qualified with a game to spare was a major boost.
“It’s always nice to get the Q before the end of the round-robin,” said Mouat.
“We’re feeling like we’re starting to step up and play a bit better, raising our game a bit, so we feel like we’re in a good spot.
“We’ve got a tough game against China later, then into the play-offs where we’re unsure who we’re going to play yet, but we’re looking to continue that form we showed against Germany there, because that was one of our better games of the week.
“We’re really excited to play China in our last round-robin game and now we’ve got the Q we can relax into it a little bit and hopefully get another win and prepare ourselves really well for the play-offs.”
Scotland’s game against China takes place at 2am (BST) on Saturday 5 April and will be shown live on The Curling Channel.
The BKT World Men’s Curling Championship runs from 29 March – 6 April, Moose Jaw, SK, Canada.
Scotland Team
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Kyle Waddell (alternate)
Michael Goodfellow (Team Coach)
Greg Drummond (Olympic Head Coach)
Please click here for draw and results.
Schedule and results:
Day One
Sunday 30 March
Scotland – Austria 12-2
Day Two
Scotland – Japan 9-6
Monday 31 March
Scotland – Korea 9-3
Day Three
Monday 31 March
Scotland – Canada 6-5(EE)
Tuesday 1 April
Scotland – Czechia 8-2
Day Four
Scotland – Italy 9-7
Day Five
Wednesday 2 April
Scotland – Switzerland 7-11
Scotland – Norway 8-4
Day Six
Thursday 3 April
Scotland – Sweden 4-10
Scotland – USA 8-6
Day Seven
Friday 4 April
Scotland – Germany 6-1
Saturday 5 April
Scotland – China – 2am
Day Eight
Saturday 5 April
Qualification games*-4pm
Semi Final games*-10pm
Day Nine
Sunday 6 April
Bronze medal game*-4pm
Gold medal game*-10pm
*Games available on the BBC iPlayer
Images: Anil Mungal/British Curling
