WILTSHIRE men staged a tremendous fightback to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat to keep their 2014 Middleton Cup campaign on track.

Three weeks previously, at home against Gloucestershire, they had trailed 58-55 at halfway but in the second half of the match pulled away to a very comfortable 32-shots win.

On this occasion though they needed a massive effort to turn their inter-county championship game with Worcestershire around.

Wiltshire made another poor start and were 39-21 adrift across the board after five ends and trailed 74-46 at halfway.

However, they fought back brilliantly to cut the gap to 100-99 after 18 ends and snatched a 119-116 success on the last end of a highly charged inter-county championship encounter at home at Wootton Bassett.

Wiltshire only took the honours in two of the six matches but the plus scores recorded by the rinks skipped by Russell Francis (13 shots) and Graham Shadwell (six shots) were enough to outweigh the narrow losses on the other four.

A delighted but relieved Wiltshire men’s team manager Dave Snell said: “There was several battling performances, with Ben Gadd 13 down at one stage and only lost by two, Mel Biggs down by 10 at one stage only lost by four, while Mike Jackson’s rink, down by 11, lost by six. And Neil Smith’s rink had a tight game losing by five.

“We only had two winning rinks in Graham Shadwell and Russell Francis but a great team spirit got us over the line.

“We now travel to Rugby in three weeks time (July 5) knowing that a win of 14 points to 8 against Warwickshire will secure us a place in the quarter finals again.”

In the group table, all four counties have played two games – Wiltshire lead on 32 points, Worcestershire are second on 23, Gloucestershire have 22 and last are Warwickshire on 11.

In the final matches Wiltshire are away to Warwickshire who have failed to win a game while Gloucestershire entertain Worcestershire.