NORTH WILTS ladies march on in two of the main women’s team championship events - Yetton Trophy and Vivienne Trophy.

They moved a step closer to emulating their 2008 Yetton title winning success with a powerful 74-51 performance against Surrey side Egham in the fifth round.

And this was achieved despite suffering transport difficulties as one of the cars carrying players to Egham broke down near Hungerford.

Luckily, they were able to make contact at their Chippenham base and were picked up and taken to Egham, arriving just inside the 30 minutes time allowance leeway.

North Wilts then brushed aside their hosts, who contained 14 of the 16 players who won the title in 2015.

The Chippenham side took the honours on three of the four rinks, with Alex Jacobs’ quartet leading the way with a brilliant 20 shots away victory.

They were ably backed up by the two home winning rinks skipped by Fizz Mace (15 shots) and Jean Collier (four shots), however, Sue Cooke’s foursome lost 24-8 at Egham.

North Wilts now move on to the quarter-finals where they will meet Weymouth-based side Moonfleet on Saturday, January 21.

North Wilts are also still going strong in the the Vivienne Trophy - four rinks of triples - a competition for non-Yetton players and should have faced Bromsgrove in round three today.

However, the midlands side conceded the game as a couple of their players were unavailable giving North Wilts, who reached the quarter-finals three years ago, a straight passage into the last 16 against either Honiton or Isca (Exeter) on January 26.

  • WILTSHIRE’S men, under the stewardship of president Steve Hockings (Christie Miller), lost their opening game of the new year, a friendly at home at North Wilts against Somerset 127-117.

Rink honours were shared 3-3, with Richard Gainey’s foursome of Graham Richards, Les Cox, Ashley Ponting and Gainey recording the biggest winning margin of 20 shots but Hockings rink skipped by Alan Small went down 22-12.

The next men’s county friendly is this Saturday (2pm) away against Gloucestershire at Cotswold IBC (Stroud).