Australian nails Kiwi merino shears title – again

Australian nails Kiwi merino shears title – again

New Zealand’s best finewool shearers have again failed to wrestle their big title back from Australian Damien Boyle who won a record fifth consecutive New Zealand Merino open championship in Alexandra on Saturday.

It was an emotional win for the 37-year-old finewool shearing supremo from Tambellup, West Australia, who just a fortnight ago was in hospital after a melanoma scare and deemed himself lucky to be in the Central Otago town, his 20th visit for the championships.

Having arrived in New Zealand just two days earlier, he had little time to get used to the local conditions, but clearly didn’t need it as he romped home in a six-man final by almost 15 points from the runner-up and home-crowd hope Colin O’Neill.

Boyle was in Alexandra with Royal Perth Show teammate Mark Buscumb, who was first to finish, shearing his 12 merino wethers in 23min 43.33sec.

Third place went to Invercargill shearer and PGG Wrightson National Circuit champion Nathan Stratford, the last New Zealander to win the Alexandra merino title, in 2009.

On Saturday, it was Stratford who tailed the field, finishing in 26min 5.2sec, but as with Boyle it was the quality of the job which got him into the major money.

Boyle and Buscumb were, however, unable to repeat their transtasman merino series win of a week earlier in Perth, with a revenge victory going to the New Zealand Merino Shears team of Grant Smith, of Rakaia, and O’Neill’s brother, Charlie.

Golden Shears woolhandling champion Joel Henare reasserted his domination across all spheres of his sport when he won his second New Zealand Merino Championships Open title, the only finewool event on the Shearing Sports NewZealand calendar.

It was a fitting triumph for Henare, from Gisborne but based in the South Island and who on Saturday was also presented with his Master Woolhandler award. It was in Alexandra 10 years ago that he first began competing, at the age of 12.

In other events at the weekend championships, the senior shearing final provided the biggest win in the career of Taumarunui shearer Cody Beck, and in woolhandling the Senior title went to Sharnie Keefe, of Taihape, and the Junior final was won by Clarissa Lewis, of Gisborne.

ENDS

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