Sawyers hoping sacrifices will pay off at Commonwealth Games
BySportsbeat
Published 06/04/2018 at 10:12 GMT
Norway skip Steffan Walstad expressed his relief after his side confirmed their spot in the World Men's Curling Championship play-off qualifiers with victory over the Netherlands in Las Vegas.
Eurosport
Image credit: Eurosport
The Scandinavians claimed fourth after the 17th round robin session on Thursday evening and their narrow 7-6 win will see them join Scotland, Sweden and Canada in the next stage.
Scotland and Sweden are joint-top of the table after the former's convincing 7-2 victory over Russia, with Canada third, despite losing 6-5 to hosts United States.
Two more places are up for grabs, with Switzerland, who beat Japan 10-9 in a thriller on Thursday evening, currently fifth, and Korea and Russia tied in sixth.
And after a couple of indifferent results during the championship for the Norwegians following a bright start, Walstad feels there is still more in the tank for his team to give.
"We've been losing a lot, so it's good to come out with a win," said the skip. "We're still not back where we were at the start of the week playing-wise but it's good to come out with a win nevertheless.
"The ice is tricky now because there are so many people here."
Sweden and Scotland both boast nine victories and one defeat from their matches so far, and Scotland skip Bruce Mouat was delighted to carry on their impressive run of form into the business end of the competition.
"Russia was quite a positive game for us and we played pretty well, so there's good momentum going into the play-offs," he said.
"We all know we've been playing well all week and we just need to keep that consistency, and then, if we can jump up another gear or two in the play-offs, then great.
"We've asked our fans to be as loud as they can and they've definitely done a lot for us."
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