After missing the previous two rounds of action, Bruce Mouat returned to lead his reigning World Champion team to an 11-4 win over Sweden in a crucial round-robin match at the Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships in Lohja.
Meetings between Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan and the seven time World Champion Swedes have generated one of the great rivalries in the history of the sport over the past decade, with the European giants sharing nine world titles between them.
Illness having ruled him out of his team’s games against Norway and Poland, the Scottish skip was consequently anxious to return for that encounter.
“It was nice to be back on the ice and I am feeling great,” he said.
“I felt quite good throughout the day but just thought I would give the morning game (against Poland) a miss because I hadn’t eaten a lot. 
“However, I was feeling absolutely fine during the day so felt quite confident I was going to play this evening and I was very motivated to get out on the ice tonight and try and build some momentum again heading into the play-offs.”
He duly steered his men to an impressive win as they surged into an early 4-1 lead and while the Swedes hit back with a three at the fourth end to level the scores, that was their last score as relentless pressure saw Scotland draw ever further clear before a four at the eighth of the 10 scheduled ends drew handshakes from their opponents.
As pleased as he was with that performance, Mouat was full of praise with the way the team had performed in his absence, with alternate Kyle Waddell playing both matches at second, Bobby Lammie shifting to third and vice skip Grant Hardie taking charge as they followed up the previous day’s win over Norway with a 7-2 victory over Poland ahead of the meeting with Sweden.
“The boys played great and I knew they would,” said Mouat.
“We have got a great fifth man in Kyle who is very willing to step in at any position.
“He played amazing and Grant is such a good skip, so there was no doubt in my mind and I knew they were going to do well and obviously they did.”
They now meet more familiar opposition in their final round-robin match in the shape of former world number one ranked Italy and while the Scots are already assured of finishing in top spot in the standings, which brings top seeding heading into the play-offs, they are clearly aiming to maintain their 100 per cent record.
“We are playing Italy tomorrow, one of the top teams in the world so we are going to have to come out and play well,” said Mouat. 
“I think we have guaranteed top sport anyway but we still want to go into that play-off game on a winning note and to finish a Europeans with such a tough field on a 9-0 record would be pretty spectacular, so we have every motivation to go out and play well tomorrow.”
The Scottish men also played a part in helping the women to the first back-to-back wins of their week as Mouat’s mixed doubles partner Jen Dodds revealed after they followed Tuesday’s defeat of Czechia with an 8-5 win over Norway in their only game of day five.
“We knew playing Norway that is was going to be an important game,” said Dodds.
“The stones were rubbed overnight so we were actually really looking forward to getting back on the ice and we got good info from the boys this morning so we knew what the ice was doing.
“I think that was a big part of how we got on top of the ice.”
She and teammates Rebecca Morrison, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson clearly had the upper hand from the off as they moved 4-0 ahead after three ends.
“We got hammer and we had two really good draw shots, two great team efforts there and at the first end straight off the bat we got a two after capitalising on one of their mistakes and just controlled the whole of the first end.
“That was what we wanted and probably made a statement out there saying this was how we were going to be playing in this game and we just continued that from the first end and got the four points out of those three ends which put the momentum totally in our corner really.
“Going four up we felt really confident, but they are a strong team so we knew they were going to come back fighting and we were going to have to play very technical shots to cut their scores down.
“I think in the seventh end Becca made a really great freeze. We were looking dicey for a minute but she made that worldy of a freeze to cut them down to two and all of us were just playing well in that game.”
While it would take an extraordinary sequence of results on the last day of the round-robin to see them qualify for the play-offs, they still have plenty to play for, including ensuring that Scotland qualify for this season’s World Championships.
“We are just going to go out and try to play like we did today and just keep building that momentum,” said Dodds.
“We have Germany in our final match and we know it is going to be another important game.
“They look like they have been having a really strong week as well so we will need to bring that performance again tomorrow and we know we fully can.”
Watch live games on The Curling Channel
Selected games will be available on the BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport online, as follows:
Scotland men v Italy (12.00 GMT - Thursday)
Team Mouat
Bruce Mouat (Skip)
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Kyle Waddell (alternate)
Team Morrison
Rebecca Morrison
Jen Dodds
Sophie Sinclair
Sophie Jackson (Skip)
Fay Henderson (alternate)
Images: Scottish Curling
