WILTSHIRE’S men collected a big scalp when winning away against Devon, one of the top counties in England, on Sunday in their opening Balcomb Trophy match.

They beat the 2015 champions and last season’s losing finalists in this men’s national county top two fours competition tie.

Rink honours were shared one each, but the 21-9 success by Neil Collett’s foursome easily covered the 18-13 loss by Ben Gadd’s four.

Team manager Neil Smith said: “Another great win on Sunday against Devon, this time in the Balcomb preliminary round.

“We had a game plan and executed it perfectly, we dominated the game from end one.

“Devon came back strongly as we expected they would, but we held them off and finished the game in style.

“All eight players performed well and repaid the faith we showed in selecting a slightly different side to previous years.

“We do have a good bit of momentum against Devon at the moment.

“We have beaten them in the last three (inter-county) meetings winning in the Middleton Cup, indoors in the Liberty Trophy and now the Balcomb.”

Wiltshire were forced into a late change, with Graham Shadwell pulling out with a shoulder injury, bringing in reserve Tom Warner (Salisbury) and re-jigging one rink and moving Holt’s Ben Gadd to skip.

Overall, Wiltshire were tied 7-7 after five ends and led 17-11 at 10, and had increased that to nine shots 23-14 after 13.

But then Devon produced their best spell of the match, winning seven of the next nine ends to reduce the Moonrakers’ lead to only 27-24.

However, Wiltshire responded to take five of the last six ends to run out as worthy overall winners 34-27.

Wiltshire move forward to round one of the Balcomb Trophy and a home match against Gloucestershire at Royal Wootton Bassett on June 10.

They county men now make the same journey to Topsham (Exeter) on Saturday to face holders Devon in their opening Middleton Cup match.

Besides Devon, the Moonrakers this season also have an away match against Worcestershire on June 16 at Stourport, and end by hosting last season’s spoilers Gloucestershire at Bassett on Saturday July 7.

Only the group winner as always will progress to the quarter-finals.