Scotland and Canada to clash again at World Curling

By Sportsbeat staff

SCOTLAND will take on Canada for a place in the final at the World Curling Championships after concluding their round-robin matches with two wins.

Tom Brewster's rink eased past the USA 8-6 and the Czech Republic 9-6 to finish with just three defeats from their 11 games.

Canada, who had been unbeaten, lost that record in their final match against New Zealand, who were guided to a thrilling extra end victory by ex-pat Scot Peter de Boer.

Canadian skip Glenn Howard beat Brewster, last year's silver medallist, earlier in the week but the Scot remains confident he can reverse that result at the business end of the championship.

And even if he's beaten he can still set up a final rematch should he get past either Norway, Sweden or New Zealand in a second chance at qualification.

"We’ll have a chat about how to beat Canada, but they’re certainly not unbeatable," said Brewster.

"I feel we get closer in every match we play them and we can take real heart from that. 

"We were close to them in the round-robin, we just need to make the shots when they open up."

Meanwhile, Kiwi skip de Boer was delighted with his shock win over Canada, which advanced his side - contesting the World Championships for the first time in seven years - into the tiebreakers.

“It doesn’t get any better than that," he said.

"It’s pretty exciting, that’s the first time New Zealand had beaten Canada and the first time New Zealand has had a winning record at this level. So we’re ticking off some boxes, and the next box we’d like to tick is a play-off.

"We got at least fifth place and hopefully our Olympic association will take note and we might get a bit of support."

© Sportsbeat 2012