We’ll win one day, Aussie blades gun promises

MEDIA RELEASE
On behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand

November 16, 2012

We’ll win one day, Aussie blades gun promises

New South Wales farmer Peter Artridge may be 50 and just taken another transtasman beating on the blades shearing board, but he isn’t giving up hope that Australia will yet beat their Kiwi rivals in a craft which is otherwise enshrined in outback folklore.

Speaking today after Kiwis Brian Thompson and Tim Hogg comfortably beat the Australian team of Artridge and the much younger John Dalla at the New Zealand Corriedale shearing and woolhandling championships in Christchurch, Artridge, who farm at Mullangandra, near Albury, says the transtasman tests which started three years ago have improved the quality of Australian competition blades shearing.

With 120 years passed since great Queensland shearer Jackie Howe shore 321 sheep with blades in less than eight hours, blades shearing in the Australian workplace is now limited mainly to specialist care of stud rams and the of jackaroos who keep a set of blades as standard equipment for clearing stock of flystrike.

In today’s test, over four sheep each, the pace was set by Thompson, who finished in 14min 36.64sec, 1min 12sec ahead of his teammate with Dalla next in 15min 51.53sec.

Dalla produced the best pen quality points, but Artridge wasn’t able to challenge the pace.

“When I saw it was going to be four sheep, I thought…That’ll hurt,” he said, after taking 19min 40.56sec.

In a scoring system based on time and quality penalties, New Zealand beat Australia by more than 18pts, 164.011 to Australia’s 182.355pts.
New Zealand had also beaten Australia comfortably in the first of the season’s two tests during the Australian National Championships in Warrnambool, Vic, three weeks ago.

Result: Transtasman Blad Transtasman Blades Test (4 sheep): New Zealand 164.011pts (Brian Thompson 14min 36.64sec, 75.832pts; Tim Hogg 14min 48.58sec, 88.179pts) beat Australia 182.355pts (John Dalla 15min 51.53sec, 77.327pts; Peter Artridge 19min 40.56sec, 105.028pts).

ENDS

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