SWINDON & District Bowls Association were beaten in their opening 2004 representative match.

The side, led by new president Ken Downton, from Shrivenham, went down by 15 shots in their annual encounter with the Wiltshire Bowls Executive.

They only took the honours on two of the six rinks as they lost 123-108 at Wootton Bassett.

The biggest winning margin was gained by Bill Byrne's rink with a 24-14 success, while the other victory was achieved by Eddie Wells' quartet by five shots.

In the battle of the presidents it was Wiltshire's Tony Watchman (Westinghouse) who came out on top beating Ken Downton's rink 25-9.

S&D's next representative match is at Shrivenham on Saturday, May 15, when they face Portsmouth and District.

Results (S&D names first)

Rink 1: D Herold (Town Gardens), N Nicholls (Wanborough), I Rumble (County Ground) and J Nelson (Supermarine) lost to Derek Bailey (Westinghouse), Don Farmer (past president), Brian Raymond (Chippenham T) and Roger Handscombe (Melksham T) 17-23.

Rink 2: D Carter, J Thompson, D Langley and J Brown (all Wanborough) lost to George Pike (past pres.), L McCourt (Warminster), Keith Evill (Ramsbury & Aldbourne) and Cecil Exton (Malmesbury) 14-21.

Rink 3: Fred Smith, Tony Glasscoo, Mike Smith (all Wanboro) and Ken Downton (president, Shrivenham) lost to Mike Mortimer (Trowbridge T); Tony Watchman (president, Westinghouse), Ken Rendall (Trowbridge Police) and Jack Clay (Warminster) 9-25.

Rink 4: M Large (IPP), M Wells, T Cope and E Wells (all Cricklade) beat Tom Mitchell (Corsham), Jack Peterson (Supermarine), Don Weston ((Westinghouse) and Bernard Crabb (Malmesbury) 26-19.

Rink 5: E Paish (Purton), D Williams (Town Gardens), T Hayward and B Byrne (Highworth) beat Joe Backshell (Haydon Wick), John Millar (Warminster), John Duncan (Blue Circle) and Chris Cheesley (Purton) 24-14.

Rink 6: J Gilchrist, A Letch, K Hammer and D Edmunds (all Wootton Bassett) lost to Mel Williams (Highworth), Richard Badger (Ramsbury & Aldbourne), Iain Cameron (Spencer Melksham) and Harry Langley (Swindon) 18-21.

WILTSHIRE have named their Under 25 side for the first round match in the National Two Fours competition against Devon at Exeter on May 15.

They had a great run in this competition last year, reaching the national semi-finals at Worthing.

Team

Rink 1: Michael Richards (West End), Jason White (Marlborough), Michael Snell (Wootton Basset) and Neil Hope (Westlecot).

Rink 2: Arran Tucker (Spencer Moulton), Luke Meehan (Corsham), Tom Bowden (Spencer Melksham) and Ian Williams (Purton).

ARCH rivals Devon will again be Wiltshire's opponents at Westlecot on May 23 in the first round of the inter-county Top Four Competition.

Team: Neil Hope (Westlecot), Graham Shadwell (Spencer Moulton), Mark Dyer and Steve Warren (Westlecot).