In the first round, two games on the extra end.
The first round brought interesting duels. The Germans lost to the Americans in the last end, and the Norwegians won the match against the hardy Danes by two after the measurement in the tenth end. The remaining matches ended in an extra end. The Scots' match with the Swiss was of better quality, with Olympic gold medallist from Turin Russ Howard sitting on the coaches' bench for the first time. In general, the cast on the bench of this track was magnificent - for the Scots David Hay, the highest qualified Scottish coach. In the extra end, the Swiss overpowered the well-playing Scots, helped by Howard's famous trick of playing the stone into the back circles in the tenth end. Murdoch missed the runback by an inch and by the eleventh end, when the Scots were so busy they almost missed the drop, the Swiss were more accurate. A valuable win. The Czechs (with Karel Uhr at number one) made a very good start against the Finns. A nice deuce in the second end, only a Finnish one in the third and a good chance for two in the fourth. This is where the match broke down for a couple of ends. Instead of our deuce, the opponent's deuce after misjudging the weight of the last stone thrown (we ended up in the guard). The Finns then played a deuce against after our inaccuracies. Another opponent's one against on a clearing attempt. It looked bad at that point. But then Kiiskinen missed an open take out and we went to a cheap deuce for four-five. In the ninth the Finns only played one and it gave them a lot of work. Jiri Snitil's team managed to mess with the Norse's heads a lot and the scoring chances were definitely there. A brilliant penultimate stone by the Czechs in the tenth end gave hope of an extra end and indeed Kiiskinen didn't play accurately in a pinch. A confidently played finish on two set up extra time. End number eleven brought good play from us and risky play from the Finns. In the end, a short last stone by the Czechs decided that the Finns did not have to match. The win in an important opening game belongs to the Finns. The Czechs don't have to be ashamed of their performance, victory was not far away. In just a moment they will face another match - against Denmark. Let's just shake off the disappointment and get on with the fight. Let's hope our planned brutal defensive play will bring us a point gain.
rnPhoto: The Swiss with their coach, the Czechs at the drop-off
