Smith leads Scotland to European final

Scotland will face defending champions Sweden in Saturday’s final after they comfortably beat Norway 8-3, but the real drama came in the second semi-final where Smith’s team triumphed 9-8 over the hosts.

Scotland looked in control early on with a steal of three points in the second end, when Switzerland’s Benoit Schwarz wrecked his last draw attempt.

But in the third end, Schwarz played a raise tap-back to score two points and reduce Scotland’s lead to 3-2. He then drew his last stone of the fifth end into the house to score three points and level the score at 5-5 at the halfway stage.

In the sixth end, Smith hit out a Swiss stone to score two points and take the lead again, at 7-5. Finally, in the tenth end, Smith drew his last stone into the house, scoring two points as he nudged a Swiss stone for the 9-8 win that puts him into his first European final.

Smith said: “That feels absolutely brilliant, we’re absolutely delighted. We got that early start and stole three which was huge, but we knew they were always going to come back.

“We put them under a bit of pressure in the last end there and thankfully they didn’t make it.”

In the other semi-final, Sweden’s skip Niklas Edin opened the scoring against Norway in the first end with a draw for two points and then stole another two points for a 4-0 lead after three ends.

Norway never got on terms after this and a single point steal by Sweden in the ninth end for 8-3 was enough to persuade Norway to concede and keep Edin’s quest for a third successive title alive.

Sportsbeat 2017