Scotland's Team Henderson suffered back-to-back defeats against two of the leading teams in the game on day five of the BKT Tires Women's World Championships in Calgary, but were still entitled to draw huge encouragement from the way they battled to the last.
With the draw pitting them against the two highest ranked teams in the competition, Eun Ji Gim's world number four Koreans, then Kerri Einarson's world number five Canadians, it always looked like the most difficult day on the schedule for Fay Henderson, Lisa Davie, Laura Watt, Hailey Duff and Katie McMillan and so it proved as they suffered 8-3, then 7-5 defeats. 
However, the way they fought back from 5-1 down early on in the second of those matches demonstrated their readiness to respond to a challenge and they tooK that match the distance, forcing Einarson to make a takeout with her final delivery of the last of the scheduled ends to secure the win for Canada.
"They were an incredibly strong team and the ice conditions were slightly different which took us a few ends to get going, but after the third end we were very competitive in the game and we gave ourselves very good chances for multiples," Scotland lead Katie McMillan said afterwards.
"We had to fight pretty hard after the first couple of ends but we re-grouped after that and made sure we knew where to put the broom and we gave ourselves a couple of chances after that."
With all three other matches in the late night session having ended early and up against the host nation, the focus was fully on them throughout the second half of the match, but as they have done throughout the week, they looked to be enjoying the atmosphere as they absorb this opportunity to compete with the best in the sport.
"We relish the underdog environment, so it’s pretty good to be out there and we thrive on that," said McMillan.
They now face Australia and Italy on day six, before wrapping up their round-robin campaign against Norway in their only match of the seventh and final day of round-robin competition on Friday.
Scotland will meet all 12 of the other competing teams in the round-robin competition, with the top six qualifying for the play-offs.
The 13 nations taking part are Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkiye and the USA.
Please click here for more information about the BKT World Women’s Curling Championship, Calgary, AB (14-22 March).
Please click here for live streamed games from The Curling Channel.
Day One
Scotland – China 6-7 (EE)
Day Two
Scotland – USA 8-3
Scotland – Turkiye 3-5
Day Three
Scotland – Switzerland 5-9
Scotland – Denmark 11-5
Day Four
Scotland – Sweden 6-8 (EE)
Scotland – Japan 4-3
Day Five
Scotland – Korea 3-8
Scotland – Canada 5-7
Day Six
Scotland – Australia (8.00pm GMT)
Scotland – Italy (1.00am GMT)
Images: World Curling
