Curling: Scotland scoop silver after dip in form

ALTHOUGH Eve Muirhead’s team travelled back from Karlstad, Sweden with silver medals yesterday, ultimately this year’s Le Gruyere European Championships had an air of disappointment for the Scottish teams.

The Scottish women lost by 5-6 to Russia after an extra end of their final, a game in which the excellent form that got them there in the first place deserted them.

There were mistakes by all the team, but Muirhead herself missed a crucial take-out in the fifth end when she was trying to blank, to give Russia an unexpected half-time 3-2 lead. In addition, she was short with a draw in the ninth to give Russia the third of the three steals that were vital in deciding the eventual winners.

The Scots were also unfortunate in the extra end when, having set the end up well, with two early centre guards, Russian second player Margarita Fomina produced the shot of the game to clear them both and take out a Scottish counter on the four foot ring into the bargain. This shot put an end to Scottish hopes and Russian skip Anna Sidorova hit and stayed for the one shot needed for her to claim the title.

Afterwards, Muirhead said: “That wasn’t our best performance, we’ve played better this week. We just missed one or two slack shots here and there, but they played well”. But she added: “I think we’ve got to take a lot of positives from this tournament. If, at the start of the week, you’d said we’d get to the final then we would have taken it but, when you get to the final, you don’t want anything but gold and, having come away with the gold last year, it makes this silver tough”.

Muirhead has already set her sights on World Championship success. Latvia host the event in March but Muirhead’s rink will first need to secure the Scottish title to compete in Riga.

“We know what we need to work on and we will be really going for a medal place out there,” the Scot added.

Muirhead was joined on the ice in Karlstad by Anna Sloan, Vicki Adams, Claire Hamilton and alternate Sarah Reid. The squad have a busy schedule to consider before thoughts can stray to mounting a challenge in Riga. “We’ve got the Continental Cup coming up in January and that’s going to be a great event,” said Muirhead.

“We want another win for team world. The three European teams are one big team and we’re against the North Americans. Then we have the Scottish championships in February, which is always big.

“With us being the top-ranked team, there is always a big target on our backs.

“So, we’ve got a lot to focus on and we need to keep our heads held high.”

The men, led by two-times world silver medallist Tom Brewster, had a troubled campaign off and on the ice in Sweden, suffering illness and poor form as they departed the scene early ranked seventh.

Twice world champion David Murdoch has been introduced to the Brewster line-up, and there still seem to be teething problems with the system they are trying to play.

Brewster explained: “We’ve not had a great season for various reasons. A lot of people are going to say it’s because we brought Dave into the team, but that’s got absolutely nothing to do with it. We’re just not making enough shots and that’s all.

“We’ve changed techniques, we’ve changed our style of play, and we’ve altered quite a few things. We’re still getting to grips with that. We have changed a lot and that takes time”.