Eve Muirhead picked out her Scotland rink’s dedication to the cause as they beat Russia 8-4 in their final round-robin to maintain their 100 per cent record at the 2016 European Curling Championships in Renfrewshire.
Scotland went into Thursday morning’s clash knowing that they were already assured of finishing top of the pile in the round robin stages with a semi-final spot safely in the bag.
But they maintained their concentration with another confident showing to make it nine wins from nine and set up a re-match with Russia in Friday’s semi-finals.
The Russians started with the last stone and opened the scoring with a single shot in the second end but after this the Scots took control, scoring two in the third and then stealing one in the fourth for a 3-1 lead.
Russia did level the game at 3-3 with two in the fifth but a controlled draw by Muirhead gave the hosts three in the sixth end for a lead they never relinquished.
The seventh end was blanked before Muirhead drew her last in the eighth for two after which the Russians conceded.
“I think it was very important (to keep winning). I guess you can always take your foot off the pedal in that last round-robin game when you know you’ve secured that number one spot, but we didn’t do that, and it was crucial that we didn’t, so we’re really looking forward to the play-off stages now.”
“There’s a whole lot of time before semi-final, I like keeping busy but our family and friends are here, so I’m looking forward to that.”
Sportsbeat 2016