Bruce Mouat insisted his rink are “in a good spot” for February’s Winter Olympics despite Scotland having to settle for bronze at the European Curling Championships in Finland.
Rebecca Morrison’s rink has qualified for Saturday’s women’s final, but Mouat’s world champion rink lost 8-5 in their semi-final despite having sailed through the round-robin phase with a 100% record.
It means the Swedes, led by former world champion Niklas Edin, will go for an eighth European title against Yannick Schwaller’s Switzerland, who lost to the Scots in this season’s world final, on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Scots beat Joel Retornaz’s Italy, who had lost 8-7 to the Swiss in their semi-final, 9-3 in Friday’s third-place play-off.
Mouat, runner-up last year and a four-time winner, said: “It was a good week and we were disappointed that we didn’t manage to cap it all with two wins in the play-offs.
“But we knew that we were playing well. We didn’t play our best in the semi-final – that was the disappointment – but we all just regrouped pretty well, had a decent chat over some food and decided we wanted to come away with something from the week.
“I am very happy with where we are. We dominated the round robin and we are potentially going to be playing seven of them at the Olympics.
“We are in a good spot and, if we turn up at the Olympics and play like we did here, we are going to be a tough team to beat and we just have to make sure we are doing that in every game rather than 10 out of the 11.”
The Italians scored one at the opening end against the Scots, but Mouat’s rink were always in control after a two at the second and threes at the sixth and eighth ends secured bronze.
Earlier, the Swedes, who lost three of their opening nine games, took two in the seventh and ninth ends to lead 7-5 against the Scots and Mouat could not extend a tense tie when he was a fraction out with his final stone.
