Scots men reach final, but women play for bronze

Rebecca Morrison's rink are in their first major championships together

Scotland's men have reached the final of the European Curling Championships, but their women's side must make do with a possible bronze medal.

The reigning champions won their semi-final 7-4 in Ostersund.

But Rebecca Morrison's side suffered an 11-3 defeat by Madeleine Dupont's Danes and will face Stefania Constantini's Italy in Friday's bronze-medal match.

Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan will learn their opponents in the final on Friday, when Yannick Schwaller's Swiss, who topped the round-robin, will be favourites against Oskar Eriksson's Swedes, who were fourth, in the second semi-final.

In Thursday's tight first semi-final, the Scots had edged into a 3-1 lead only for the Italians to level by scoring two at the seventh end, but scoring four at the next gave Olympic and World silver medallist Mouat a match-winning lead.

It completed a double in quick succession over the Italians, who the Scots had beaten 7-5 to inflict the Italians' first defeat of the round robin and end their unbeaten run, with Mouat saying: "Now we're really excited to go for our third European gold in our third appearance here.

"It feels like we're playing well enough to win, but we're going to have to put the game together to be able to get it. It would be great to come out firing and prove ourselves again on the European field and hopefully teams across the world will be watching."

Morrison, Gina Aitken, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson had finished fourth in their round-robin in their first major championship together and now must beat Italy, who finished second, to secure a medal.

While the Italians were losing to Alina Paetz's world champions from Switzerland 9-5, the Scots were well beaten by the side who had topped the round-robin rankings.

Scoring three at both the third and fifth ends meant the Danes had the match wrapped up by the eighth and Morrison was philosophical about the defeat.

"The Danish team played brilliantly out there," Scotland's skip said. "They didn't miss much and were just really clinical, so at the end of the day, they deserved that win.

"Our goal this week is to medal, though, so we're not out of sight of that yet."

Finishing in the top eight qualifies both Scottish teams for next year's World Curling Championships.