Honeymoon's Overs Shearer Smith Wins Test And Weekend Double

MEDIA RELEASE

On behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand

January 27, 2013

The Honeymoon's Overs Shearer Smith Wins Test And Weekend Double

Hastings shearer Rowland Smith was the man of the moment as he won two weekend championships and stood-in at the last minute for unavailable Southland shearer Nathan Stratford as New Zealand beat Wales in the first test of the three-test Elders Primary Wool Shearing Series.

Recently married to fellow record-breaking former shearer Ingrid Baynes, 2011 New Zealand Open champion and national team member Smith won the Horowhenua A and P Open title last weeek after returning from his honeymoon in Hawaii, and made it three in a row by winning Saturdays Taihapa show Open final, and today's Agrodome Shears title at the Rotorua A and P Show at Ngongotaha.

It was at the Rotorua show that he and reigning Golden Shears and New Zealand champion John Kirkpatrick made-up an all-Hawke's Bay team which beat touring Welsh shearers Gareth Lloyd Evans and Richard Jones, from the Denbighshire town of Bylchau and Corwen respectively. Smith was first to finish the 12 sheep, taking 10min 38.8sec, almost 20 seconds quicker than his teammate, with the first of the Welsh, taking 11min 55.1sec, enabling the Kiwis to win by more than 13pts.

Smith's brother, Matthew, was runner-up in the Open final at Rotorua, and brother-in-law Lachie Baynes, of Wairoa, won the Senior final.

A feature of the Rotorua show was the appearance of two Hastings-based French shearers in lower-grade finals, with Loic Leygonie fourth in the Intermediate class, won by David Gordon, of Masterton, and in the Junior final Thibaut Negre fifth behind winner Marshall Guy, of Kaeo.

Te Awamutu woolhandler Keryn Herbert also made it three-in-a-row, having won the national crossbred lambs woolhandling title in Southland last week. She won on Saturday at Taihape and today at Rotorua, claiming a trophy she had presented for the event.

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Rowland Smith, from Northland but now based in Hastings, shears New Zealand victory over Wales in Rotorua today. At right is Welsh shearer Richard Jones. Smith was a late stand-in for Kiwi selection Nathan Stratford, of Invercagill.

ENDS

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