Above: Eve Muirhead and Vicki Adams sweep Anna Sloan's stone in Esbjerg this evening.Leslie Ingram-Brown reports from Denmark:
"It is the end of the road for Anna, Claire, Vicki, Rhiann and Eve as Lene Nielsen's Denmark inflicted a resounding 12-5 defeat on the Scots in Draw 14.
It started brightly with Anna winning the Last Stone Draw but sadly that was all there was to shout about in the first five ends. Blanking the first end Anna hit and rolled out against two and Denmark stole one in the second and in the third the game suddenly went away from Anna when, against 4, she came up short with her last stone draw on which she thinks she may have had a pick-up.
Back 5-0 it was going to take a gigantic effort to get back into the game. In the fourth end the first of very few Danish errors saw Nielsen wreck on a guard allowing Anna to draws for a 2, but the Scots immediately lost a two in the fifth as Anna's last stone draw failed to bury. Denmark had a five shot lead going into the break.
In the next two ends the teams swapped threes but at 10-5 with three ends to go the prospect of any comeback looked bleak. Nielsen drew for two in the eighth and at 12-5 the Scots had had enough and conceded.
With only three wins from nine games there is now no chance of Scotland making the playoffs. And with Switzerland and Norway to-morrow it will be a tough end to a tough week for our team.
Afterwards Anna said, "I think I have to take the responsibility there as I didn't have draw weight and the girls played well. The steal of four killed us but we have learnt a lot. We tried to adapt to what we had done wrong. We are a young team with so much to learn. Playing the best teams in the world gives us so much experience and a desire to come back.""
RESULTS Draw 14: Sweden 5 Canada 4, Germany 7 Czech Republic 3, China 6 Norway 4, Denmark 12 Scotland 5.
Standings after 14 Draws: 8/1 - Sweden; 6/3 - China, Denmark, Russia; 5/4 - Canada, Switzerland; 4/5 - Germany, USA; 3/6 - Norway, Scotland; 2/7 - Czech Republic, Korea.
The official website is here, and Mike Haggerty's reports are on the Royal Club website here.
Photo courtesy of Leslie Ingram-Brown
