With her team guaranteed number one ranking as they head into the European Championship play-offs Eve Muirhead made it clear last night that there would be no slacking as they re-set their sights on going through the competition unbeaten.
Arithmetically at least eight successive wins means there is no more they can do in competitive terms so can relax ahead of today’s meeting with a Russian team that is defending the title albeit with a different line-up this year.
However Muirhead is determined that standards be maintained to the end of the round-robin section and could not be more clear about her determination to measure herself against the very best in the sport.
“It’s really important that we keep the momentum going,” she said after their 7-3 win against Denmark, having beaten the Czech Republic 10-5 earlier in the day.
“We know we’re going to be ranked number one going into the semis, but we don’t want to slack off one little bit so we will keep fighting really hard to keep the ‘w’s coming.
“It’s never easy to play a championship and not have any losses but so far we’re playing well and we are doing well not to have any losses.
“It would be something really special if you were going to go unbeaten, especially in your home country, but we can’t get complacent, we’ve still got a lot of hard work to do. It would be nice but we need to keep working hard.
“In Sochi we saw Jennifer Jones of Canada go through the whole Olympic Games unbeaten which was phenomenal. Obviously I want to be as good as her so I’m trying hard to follow suit.”
They have had their share of good fortune in the course of this run, not least when Binia Feltscher, skip of the world champion Swiss rink who have made a surprise early exit from the competition after winning just three of their eight matches, missed what she would have considered a straightforward draw to win their match earlier in the week. Furthermore if Muirhead had the slightest doubt about how hard it will still be to win 11 successive matches, the memory of the last time she took a 100 per cent record into play-offs remains fresh.
“We did it in the Europeans two years ago… and came away with silver, which wasn’t ideal.”
By contrast with the way they have cruised through the women’s competition Team Brewster went into what was the final day of round-robin matches in the men’s event under intense pressure, knowing they needed to win one of them to secure Scotland’s place at the World Championships later in the season and both if they were to make it to the knockout stages.
They got the first part of that job done, signalling their intent by stealing at the opening end and while they offered their supporters a moments anxiety when they allowed their Italian opponents to draw level at 4-4 with a two at the seventh end, but after singles were exchanged, the Scots controlled the final end well to leave skip Tom Brewster an open draw to the four foot to clinch the vital win.
“We woke up this morning and we knew we needed two wins. I didn’t think about the implications of not winning today,” Brewster claimed after that match.
“Our focus has always remained the same and that is to make the play-offs. We want to be in the hunt for a medal.”
Up against a Russian rink that is coached by Soren Gran, the man who, when in charge of the British Curling programme, made the decision to switch skips ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, relegating Brewster from leading the team he had built to sitting on the bench, they again started well, stealing at the opening end.
However the balance had swung the other way by the halfway stage after the teams exchanged twos at the next two ends, before Alexey Timofeev’s Russians took another two at the fourth, then a steal at the fifth to lead 5-3.
As they have been repeatedly throughout the week the Scottish quartet of Brewster, Glen Muirhead, Ross Paterson and Hammy McMillan, were up against it and as they have also repeatedly done, they responded, levelling the scores with a two at the sixth, then manufacturing another steal at the seventh to move back in front.
The Russians levelled at the next and after a blanked ninth end the Scots kept the hammer at the last, but needing to get a piece of the button to win the match Brewster’s final stone ran just too far, ending their campaign.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here