Thursday, July 24, 8pm

Shear tests go to wire in Wales

The New Zealand shearing team is faced with a must-win situation in ending its eight-test tour of Britain after losing the latest test at the Royal Welsh Show in Builth Wells.

John Kirkpatrick, of Napier, and James Fagan, of Te Kuiti, lost the first two tests to Scotland, and beat England twice, but are 1-2 down against Wales heading into the showdown at the Corwen Shears on Saturday.

The third test in Wales yesterday (Wednesday) was a disaster for Kirkpatrick who put in his best performances of the tour to be first off the board in both the test match and the Royal Welsh All Nations Open title, and would have posted top quality points and taken a meritorious double had it not been for a single automatic five-point penalty cut on one sheep in each of the 20-sheep events.

In a sport where results are often determined by fractions of a point, imposition of the automatic penalty is rare, but is done when a cut is detrimental to the breeding capability of a sheep or cause other long-term damage detrimental to its welfare or value.

Consequently, a test the Shear Blacks would have won by more than four points ended with Welshmen Nicky Beynon and Gareth Evans winning by 0.95pts, and Kirkpatrick was relegated to fourth in the six-man open final which did, however, still produce a Kiwi quinella with Fagan winning his second open final of the tour, just cutting uncle David Fagan out of career title No 593, Another New Zealander, Northland shearer Matt Smith, was fifth.

ENDS