Scotland left to fight for bronze after Norway defeat

WARWICK Smith lost his nerve in the final end to see his Scottish rink's gold medal chances scuppered by Norway at the World Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo.

SO CLOSE: Warwick Smith will have to fight for bronze after Norway overcame his rink in Italy 9-7 (Getty Images)

Smith and his rink of David Smith, Craig Wilson and Ross Hepburn will now face the USA in the bronze medal match tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Norway will be facing favourites Canada in the gold medal match for the third time in the competition with the head to head currently all square at one apiece.   

And Smith knows he had a real chance to go for gold but his rink left themselves too much to do trailing 7-3 after the fifth end.

"We played really well in the second half there, but we didn't play many shots in the first half," said Smith. 

"We played great when we had last stone, creating chances, but the three ends without last stone were terrible, we had some bad play when they had last stone.

"It's a big disappointment not getting to the final because we had our sights set on that, but we've got another game tomorrow.

"They tend to hang onto you so it's going to go down to the wire. We just need to play our own game."

At the end of the fifth Norway looked like they might run away with the game, but Scotland stuck with it picking up singles in the sixth and seventh ends.

And an impressive display in the ninth from Smith saw the Scots pick up two and put the pressure back on Norwegian skip Torgen Nergard for the final end.

Smith had the chance to pick a single and take the match into an extra end, but his final stone could not quite reach its target leaving a easy shot for Nergard.

Nergard made the most of having the hammer by securing a single and his side eventually finished 9-7 winners to book a place in the gold medal match against Canadian skip Kevin Koe.

Smith, who captured victory at the Scottish National Championships last month to earn the right to lead Scotland in Italy, had secured a 6-4 win over USA skip Pete Fenson in the fourth place play-off to secure his rink's semi-final spot.

However, he will need to overcome Fenson again if they are to take home a medal.