Oxfordshire's Men’s A team rescued a draw from their Inter-Counties Cha-mpionship clash against Hampshire.

Trailing 13-11 going into the final round of matches, wins from Dennis Smith, Preben Krabben, Roger Haines, Ade Larner, Kit Young, Les Radford and Pete Hall secured a 7-5 success, and an 18-18 draw overall.

Incredibly, it is Oxon’s third draw in four matches this season.

They got off to a good start on the first of the two days, drawing 3-3 in the Ladies’ B match, with wins from lady-of-the-match Louise Carroll (average 19.64), Julie Newman and Cath Birch, before taking the Men’s B game 7-5.

Steve Foster (26.33), Jon Jukes, Barry Stratford, John Fowler, Graham Manning, Simon Tricker and Paul Farnes all triumphed as Oxon edged into a 10-8 lead.

However, the Ladies A were no match for a strong Hampshire outfit on the second day, crashing to a 5-1 defeat with Rachael Dixon (18.90) claiming the sole point.

And that meant the Men’s A needed to pull out all the stops to avoid defeat, and they did, with Smith and Krabben sharing the top-dog honour with averages of 28.36.

Smith is a leading PDC player who reached the last eight of this year’s World Matchplay.

The result was enough to move Oxon up one place in the table to sixth.