Ewan MacDonald eyes up big finish at World Championships

Scotland had given themselves a fighting chance of advancing from the group stages after racking up three wins on the bounce, but that mini-run came to an abrupt end with a 7-1 defeat to Canada.

The Scots won last stone advantage for the first end but gave up a steal of one when MacDonald was heavy with his second-stone draw.

In the second end, he completely missed a tricky take-out attempt to give up another steal and, in the third, his draw was short to give up another single-shot steal and hand Canada a 3-0 advantage.

MacDonald was facing four Canadian counters in the fourth end when he hit and stayed around to score one, and in the fifth Canadian skip Pat Simmons came up short with his final draw to score only one from the end rather than the two shots that seemed probable.

Scotland blanked the sixth end and eventually when MacDonald once again came up short with a draw attempt in the eighth end, to give up a steal of two more points, the Scots conceded with the score at 7-1 to Canada.

This result removes even the mathematical possibility of tie-breakers for Scotland, but with games against China and Sweden still to come MacDonald doesn't want to go out with a whimper.

"We had a big struggle with the stones and couldn't get a grip at all," MacDonald said. "I'm really disappointed that we didn't give them a better game of it.

"Now we've just to get our heads together. We've got a tough game tomorrow against Niklas (Sweden) , so we've just got to re-group and come out stronger and try to finish on two wins and a positive note."