WILTSHIRE’S men’s team have qualified for the regional final in the Balcomb Trophy – the national county top two-fours competition.

This is just one step away from securing a semi-final place at the national championships at Royal Leamington Spa in August.

The Moonrakers followed up their impressive 34-27 victory against Devon when thrashing Gloucestershire 58-25 at Royal Wootton Bassett last Sunday to book a last four spot in the west regional final.

Wiltshire fielding an unchanged side that contained two players from both Bassett and Westlecot clubs.

Ben Gadd’s foursome alongside Gary Jackson (Westlecot), Tom Warner and Wayne Snook romped to a 31-9 win.

The other quartet of Westlecot’s Paul Kistle, Royal Wootton Bassett duo Graham Hatherall and Neil Collett alongside Russ Francis were leading 27-16 at 19 ends when a halt was called, with Wiltshire holding a handsome 33-shots advantage overall.

The Moonrakers now progress to the west regional final at Bristol on June 24 where they will face either Worcestershire, Cornwall or Dorset.

WILTSHIRE’S Middleton Cup campaign hit the buffers a fortnight ago in Devon when they lost 128-105 at Topsham.

Today, they face Worcestershire away in their second group game at Stourport.

The team to face Worcestershire shows several changes in personnel as well as positional switches to the one that lost to Devon.

The two winning rinks skipped by Steve Snell and Neil Collett, plus Neil Smith’s narrow losing rink, are unchanged, while Mike Jackson and Chris Cheesley swap rinks.

However, Ben Gadd’s quartet that lost heavily shows two player changes, with Wayne Simmonds and Craig Hatherall dropping down to the reserves bench to be replaced by James Richman and Tony Keating.

Wayne Snook reverts back to number three, with Graham Shadwell returning from injury moving down to skip to replace the unavailable Gadd.

Today’s game against Worcester sees Westlecot’s Ian Jefferies join an exclusive county men’s club.

Jefferies, a fine Wiltshire stalwart, will make his 100th Middleton Cup appearance for the county.

He becomes the fifth male in the county to reach this milestone and joins Mike Jackson (129 appearances), Mel Biggs (121), Neil Smith (118) and Dave Snell (113) as a member of the centurions club.

SEMI-FINALS in the men’s county triples and fours championships will be staged on Sunday at Devizes.

The winners of the semis will automatically book a place at Victoria Park, Royal Leamington Spa, to represent Wiltshire at the men’s national championships and men’s county finals.

Royal Wootton Bassett head the club’s representative list with three teams out of eight, two in the fours and one in the triples, while Salisbury are next best with both of their teams facing each other in the triples semi-finals.

The other three clubs represented in the semis are Holt, Avon and

Chippenham Town.