DESPITE a tremendous recovery, Wiltshire women were beaten in their opening inter-county championship match of the season by Devon.

The county made a disastrous start to their first west group match in the Johns Trophy and were 48-16 down across the board after only five ends.

However, they fought back to cut the gap to 70-63 at halfway before slipping back again to trail 108-89 at 15 ends and 122-107 at 18.

The county dug deep again to fight back, only to fall short by three shots as they went down 129-126.

Wiltshire managed to take the honours on two rinks and draw on another but lost on the other three. Despite the closeness of the scoreline, they only took five of the 22 points on offer.

Alex Jacobs’ rink, despite 9-5 down at five ends, hit back for a 33-15 success, while Devizes’ Sue Ochyra skipped the other victorious quartet, who won by six shots.

Wiltshire face Dorset away at West Moors in their next Johns Trophy match on June 20.

  • THE county ladies national triples championship quarter-finals and semi-finals will be played at Purton today (10.15am).

In the northern section, a triple from Wootton Bassett. skipped by Pat Edmonds, as well as triples from Stratton Churchway. led by Janet Willis, Wanborough. skipped by Deanne Davis, and Supermarine, led by Pat Jones, all qualified for the last eight at Purton.

They will be joined by two triples teams from Devizes, led by Mary Jones and Sue Ochyra, one from Box and another from Wilton.

The Purton triples semi-final winners today will book a place in the county ladies finals at Devizes on July 25 and also earn the right to represent Wiltshire at the National Championships to be held at Bowls England headquarters at Royal Leamington Spa in August.

  • THE poor run of results for Bowls Wiltshire Ladies in county friendly matches in May continued.

After losing by three shots to West Glamorgan at Wroughton, they were beaten by Warwickshire at Bidford-on-Avon and last week went down by 20 shots to Oxfordshire at Stratton Churchway.

Ladies county president Joyce Little (Devizes) will be seeking better fortunes and her first friendly victory of the 2015 season when she leads the Bowls Wiltshire county women’s side against Berkshire on Tuesday, June 16, at Shrivenham.