T hey were good enough to beat the two best-known players in Scottish bowls in separate matches, but it said everything about bowls in this country that Callum Taggart and Alistair Greer's week did not end with a national title at Ayr's Northfield yesterday.
In many ways the Hyndland partnership's defeat in yesterday's final, to Pilrig's inspired combination of Darren McKenny and Chris Steven, said everything about both the strength and weakness of Bowls Scotland's one major national outdoor competition.
These championships represent a wonderful tribute to Scotland's egalitarian traditions; the top players put themselves up to be shot down, as Paul Foster and Alex Marshall were. However, it is clearly an inadequate way of assessing the form and quality of a vast array of contenders for international places with any degree of certainty.
That said, Taggart, a 21-year-old whose mother, Ann Marie, won back-to-back British Indoor Championships indoors – deserved the plaudits received for defeating first Foster, then Marshall.
In the second round he was a model of composure as his consistency bowls played set up an unassailable 17-1 lead over Foster and his Troon Portland partner Barry Nixon.
Then in yesterday morning's semi-final match against Marshall and his Gifford clubmate David Sked, it was 13-13 going into the final end where Taggart and Greer produced the bowls that mattered.
Yet in the final, even when Taggart produced a high-class shot to lie three at what proved the crucial 10th end of the 17-end match, McKenny had the answer.
His driven riposte transformed a three-shot deficit into a five-shot gain and the last chance of the Hyndland pair was snuffed out by McKenny when, with Taggart and Greer lying three at the 15th end, another superb final bowl stole the shot.
"It's given me a huge boost to know you can compete with two of the world's best players," Taggart said afterwards. "We've done well to beat them and obviously it's disappointing to do that then lose in the final, but it's the way it goes.
"I'm particularly disappointed because Alistair played well in the final and I felt I let him down a wee bit."
Taggart's performance over the week has elevated him in terms of awareness within the bowls community.
"I played in the Junior Singles a couple of years ago and was beaten in the first round, but this is the first time I've made it to Northfield in the seniors, so it's a big step forward," he said.
Yet David Gourlay, Scotland's head coach, noted that Taggart's performance as a skip may have confused matters slightly, since he had identified the youngster earlier in the year as a lead of considerable potential.
Similarly, Lorna Smith's addition of a first Scottish title to the vast array of South African titles she has won will be seen by some as proving the Scotland selectors wrong for leaving her out of their squad for this year's World Championships.
Yet she was under consideration for that team as a skip, whereas the title she claimed yesterday was in singles, a discipline much more relevant to playing as a lead in team competition.
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