Pages

Thursday, March 24, 2011

WWCC2011: Scotland v Norway

Leslie Ingram-Brown reports from Denmark:

"After the run of losses what better way to end your participation at a championship than by winning your last game. Norway were the team on the receiving end of a 6-3 defeat by Anna, Claire, Vicki and Rhiann, with Eve being on the bench.

To be honest I did not see much of this game as I was more interested in trying to work out who was going to be out or in the playoffs!

A brief summary for the purists would be that with the hammer Norway's Linn Githmark was forced to take a single in the first end and Anna blanked the second before a run of 1, 2, 1 over ends three to five to lead 4-1 at the fifth end break.

Singles were swapped over the next four ends with Anna leading 6-3 after nine ends and ran Norway out of stones in the tenth for her fourth win here in Denmark.

After the game Anna was happy to finish with a win. Now it is time to come home and reflect on what has been a tremendous season with golds at the Winter Universiade and WCF World Juniors and domestically the gold medals at the Scottish Juniors and Scottish Women's.

And as a thought from this 'scribe' did we expect too much from such a young team who had to play high pressure curling for such a continuous period of weeks? After all the girls are all amateurs who train hard to be fit for the sport. I just get fed up reading in the newspapers about professional sportsmen who complain at playing two/three games of football a week.

Okay, I've had my moan.

As for the rest of the games China beat Denmark, Canada beat Germany and Sweden beat the Czech Republic. Sweden has qualified in first place and China in second. That's the Page 1 v 2 game.

Canada have finished on seven wins with Denmark, Russia and Switzerland on six wins. In the last Draw (17) this evening. Denmark will play Russia so one of these teams will finish on seven wins along with Canada. Switzerland play Norway. A Swiss win will mean there will be one tie-break game. If Switzerland lose to Norway there will be no tiebreak games as the winner Denmark v Russia will be the final qualifier with Canada for the play-offs.

If Russia and Switzerland both win to join Canada on seven wins as they have all beaten each other during the round robin it will be down to the Last Stone Draw/Draw Shot Challenge to decide who will qualify automatically, and who will play the tiebreak game.

It will all become clear after the evening draw."

RESULTS Draw 16: China 7 Denmark 5, Scotland 6 Norway 3, Canada 8 Germany 6, Sweden 7 Czech Republic 6 (Extra-end)

Standings after 16 Draws: 9/1 - Sweden (Q); 8/3 - China (Q); 7/4 - Canada; 6/4 - Denmark, Switzerland, Russia; 5/5 - USA; 4/6 - Germany; 4/7 - Scotland; 3/7 - Norway; 2/8 - Korea; 2/9 - Czech Republic.

The official website is here, and Mike Haggerty's reports are on the Royal Club website here.