03-04-2015, 17:00
Scotland's recovery didn't last too long, being outgunned by Canada. Despite having last stone on 6 ends, they only scored on one end before conceding 1-7 after 8 ends. Skip Ewan MacDonald struggled with his draw weight throughout and weight accuracy is vital on the last stone.
Yesterday China beat Scotland 10-3 again after 8 ends. The first half of the game was close and Scotland were only 2-3 down after 5 ends, but a 4 in the 6th end and a 3 in the 8th end put Scotland to the sword.
In their final game of a desperately poor Championship for Scotland, they had Duncan Fernie back at third, replacing David Murdoch, to play against Sweden. A poor first end saw the Scots lose a 4, followed by a 1 in the second end. To their credit they came back into things and only trailed by 1 shot after 6 ends. Then the old faults came back and they lost a 2 and a 3 in the last 3 ends to lose by 6-11.
After the game, MacDonald, who has carried out what became excruciating post-game media rituals with enormous dignity, said, ” I’m just extremely disappointed. Coming into this week, we’d all put in a lot of work and thrown a lot of stones and we were feeling good. We just got off to a really poor start and we were up against it right from the kick-off. We put ourselves under pressure. We knew how important it was to get out of the traps, and it didn’t happen.”
The upshot of all this is that Scotland finished in 11th place with 3 wins, just ahead of Russia. The 1v2 play-off will be between Canada and Norway, with Sweden taking third place. Finland and USA will play a tie-breaker for fourth place.
No doubt there will be a major inquest by the hierarchy at home into why the Scots performed so badly, and it's equally certain that the players and coaches will already have had one. There is a points system to decide world ranking positions, which is weighted in favour of recent results, which might see Scotland (and GB in Olympic tournaments) slide down the table if things don't change quickly. Scotland has a proud record in major tournaments and won't want to be overtaken in their top three placement.
Yesterday China beat Scotland 10-3 again after 8 ends. The first half of the game was close and Scotland were only 2-3 down after 5 ends, but a 4 in the 6th end and a 3 in the 8th end put Scotland to the sword.
In their final game of a desperately poor Championship for Scotland, they had Duncan Fernie back at third, replacing David Murdoch, to play against Sweden. A poor first end saw the Scots lose a 4, followed by a 1 in the second end. To their credit they came back into things and only trailed by 1 shot after 6 ends. Then the old faults came back and they lost a 2 and a 3 in the last 3 ends to lose by 6-11.
After the game, MacDonald, who has carried out what became excruciating post-game media rituals with enormous dignity, said, ” I’m just extremely disappointed. Coming into this week, we’d all put in a lot of work and thrown a lot of stones and we were feeling good. We just got off to a really poor start and we were up against it right from the kick-off. We put ourselves under pressure. We knew how important it was to get out of the traps, and it didn’t happen.”
The upshot of all this is that Scotland finished in 11th place with 3 wins, just ahead of Russia. The 1v2 play-off will be between Canada and Norway, with Sweden taking third place. Finland and USA will play a tie-breaker for fourth place.
No doubt there will be a major inquest by the hierarchy at home into why the Scots performed so badly, and it's equally certain that the players and coaches will already have had one. There is a points system to decide world ranking positions, which is weighted in favour of recent results, which might see Scotland (and GB in Olympic tournaments) slide down the table if things don't change quickly. Scotland has a proud record in major tournaments and won't want to be overtaken in their top three placement.
Cabbage is still good for you