WILTSHIRE'S Under 25 men’s side maintained their fine start to the 2015 season with an excellent performance at home on Bank Holiday Monday at Westlecot.

The junior county team retained the Four Counties U25 Bowls Festival Tournament title that they won at the first attempt last season, against teams from Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and Worcestershire.

Each county again supplied three rinks with one from each county playing against each other once over 21 ends at Westlecot.

Wiltshire maintained their positive start to the new campaign, winning on two of the three rinks to collect four points, but a far superior shots difference of +22 over Worcestershire’s +13 saw them lift the Trophy for the second year in a row.

Nick Revell’s rink took Wiltshire’s top spot with a 17-shot win while Gary Jackson’s quartet won on 14 ends to record a 12-shot success. Tom Warner’s four went down by seven in a 25-18 loss, but had recovered well from 23-10 down at 16 ends.

RESULTS

Rink 1: Somerset (S Steel) beat Glos (Max Clark) 33-18.

Rink 2: Michael Titcombe (Westlecot), Ben Choules (Highworth), Craig Hatherall (West) & Tom Warner (Amesbury) lost to Gloucestershire (Nathan Kitchen) 18-25.

Rink 3: Ashley Plumb (Ames), Jake Webster (West), James Richman (High) & Gary Jackson (West) beat Worcestershire (Adam Bond) 24-12.

Rink 4: Adam Bolwell (Holt), Matt Daniell (Wootton Bassett), Craig Morphet (West) & Nick Revell (Ames) beat Somerset (R White) 28-11.

Rink 5: Worcs (Luke Lane) beat Somerset (G Aldridge) 38-22

Rink 6: Worcs (Jamie Taylor) beat Glos (Ben Coldrick) 23-14.

Final placings: 1 Wiltshire 4pts (+22); 2 Worcestershire 4pts (+13); 3 Gloucestershire 2pts (-17); 4 Somerset 2pts (-18).

LOCAL players feature prominently in the players chosen to attend the Wiltshire Men’s Middleton Cup trial being staged at Wootton Bassett next Sunday, May 17 (10am).

Team manager Dave Snell and his fellow selectors have picked 20 local players in the squad of 32 named for the trial.

Ten of the players are from the Wootton Bassett club, nine from Swindon Old Town club Westlecot and one from Haydon Wick.

The players named are: Kyle Anderson, Chris Cheesley, Dave Godwin, James Nobbs, Gary Mophet, Stephen Snell, Neil Smith, Tom Walkley, David Snell and Barry Sictorness (all Wootton Bassett); Mel Biggs, Kevin Embling, Craig and Graham Hatherall, Gary and Mike Jackson, Ian Jefferies, Paul Kistle and Michael Richards (all Westlecot), plus Haydon Wick’s Ian Williams who has switched clubs for this season.

The remainder of the players named for the trial play out of three clubs Holt (seven), Spencer Moulton (three) and Amesbury (two).

In 2014, Wiltshire reached the inter-county championship semi-finals at Leamington but lost to Hampshire who went on to win the Middleton Cup final against Norfolk.

Last year Wiltshire initially began in a four-team west region section, but in 2015 they will play in a group of five consisting of Dorset, Somerset, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire with only the group winner progressing to the quarter-finals.

Their first Middleton Cup match is away against Warwickshire on June 6.

TWO Westlecot players, Mel Biggs and Graham Hatherall, are named in separate rinks to contest the opening round in the Balcombe Trophy.

Wiltshire will face old adversaries Devon in round one of the men’s national county top two fours competition on the neutral green at Bristol Bowls Club on Sunday, May 24 (11.30am).

Biggs will play at number three alongside the Spencer Moulton (Bradford-on-Avon) national triples-winning team at Leamington of Andy Colebrooke (lead), Russell Francis (two) and Graham Shadwell (skip).

Hatherall has been chosen at number two along with last season’s successful Holt trio of Wayne Simmonds, Wayne Snook and Ben Gadd.

WROUGHTON will today host the second Wiltshire Ladies Johns Trophy trial (2pm).

Fifteen players from eight local clubs will be taking part in the trial.

They are Julia Hunt and Deanna Davis (Wanborough), Charlie Godwin, Gilly Nash, Patricia Murray, Lucy and Katy Smith (all Wootton Bassett), Geraldine Reade and Linda Perfitt (Westlecot), J Evans and Joanna Richman (Highworth), Babs Salter (Wroughton), Janet Willis (Stratton Churchway), Julie Jones (Purton) and Glenys Truman (Supermarine).

Last year in the Johns Trophy (inter-county championship) Wiltshire, who went out in the group stages, played in a section of four counties.

However, in 2015 they will contest a five counties group consisting of Devon, Dorset, Herefordshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire with only the group winner moving forward to the quarter-finals.

Wiltshire’s first Johns Trophy match is at home at Devizes against Devon on Saturday, May 30 (2pm).