Euro hopes end for Scots curling women

Published on Thursday 10 December 2009 22:07

WHILE the Scottish women crashed out of medal contention at the Le Gruyère European Curling Championships in Aberdeen yesterday morning, losing their final round-robin game by 5-7 to Denmark, David Murdoch and his men kept the defence of their European title alive with a 7-2 win over France in their tie-breaker.

Murdoch and his team now return to the ice to play Switzerland in their Page Play-off game, with the winner going onto this afternoon's semi-final, where they will face either Norway or Sweden.

The Scottish men were hardly troubled in their tie-breaker. They scored singles in the first three ends to establish a lead and France blanked the fourth and fifth before being forced to take one in the sixth. There was a mini-revival from France with a single steal in the seventh, but the Scots built up the next end to score three and then stole a single in the ninth for 7-2, at which point the French conceded.

Afterwards, Murdoch said: "That was another business-like performance. We were never really in any danger there and we just had to have patience to get the chance for a big end, and we just had to wait for a few ends to get there".

More generally he added: "Everybody's playing well. We're now up against Switzerland and hopefully that won't be a repeat of the first game, which we lost. The ice is still tricky, but we'll work with what we've got and the plan is to come out all guns blazing."

Earlier, Eve Muirhead and her Scottish women came heartbreakingly close to keeping their medal hopes alive. They were inches short with a final draw in the tenth to give up a steal of one and the game. If they had won, they would have gone to the Page 1-2 game against Switzerland. Instead, Denmark will now face the Swiss in the 1 – 2 game while the Scots rank sixth overall, but it was all so near yet so far.

At least Muirhead's team have the consolation of securing Scotland's place in March's world championship with this result.

After the game, Muirhead said: "The ice was tricky but to finish like that was pretty gutting."