Disappointing end as Scots women are edged in final

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

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

There were mistakes by all the team, but Muirhead herself missed a crucial take-out in the fifth end 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.

Russian skipAnna Sidorova then hit and stayed for the shot needed 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.”

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

Twice world champion David Murdoch has been introduced to the Brewster lineup, 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.”