MEDIA RELEASE

On behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand

October 27, 2013

Aussies all at home in transtasman shears tests

The New Zealand shearing and woolhandling team has returned home after failing for the second year in a row to win either of its two transtasman tests in Australia.

In the shearing test at the Warrnambool Agricultural Show on the Victoria southwest coast on Saturday, Hawke’s Bay’s John Kirkpatrick and Rowland Smith, and teammate Dion Morrell, of Central Otago, succumbed by almost 30 points against former World champion Shannon Warnest and Australian teammates Justin Dolphin and Robert Glover.

It was however a much closer affair in the woolhandling test, where just over three points separated Keryn Herbert, of Te Awamutu, and Tia Potae, of Milton, from the triumphant Australian pair of Angela Wakeley and Kayle Garner.

Australia had won both tests in Warrnambool last year, but the New Zealand teams reversed the results at the Golden Shears in Masterton in March.

The Kiwi shearers again had to bow to the mastery of Warnest, who has shorn 22 transtasman tests since his first in 2000.

At 39, the South Australian finewool master has had a decade-long unbroken run of 20 tests in the series of two tests home-and-away each summer, being the top individual 15 times, and figuring in 12 Australia wins, including 3 away from home. All are transtasman series records.

Kiwi finewool guru Morrell, surprise runner-up to West Australian shearer Damien Boyle in the recent New Zealand Merino Championships and therefore selected at the age of 50 and a decade after last donning the black singlet and silver fern, had a serious crack at unseating Warnest by forcing the pace in the 12 sheep contest, a mixture of finewool and crossbred sheep.

But, cutting his pen out in 17min 51sec, and beating Warnest by 15 seconds, Morrell had sacrificed quality, and the time served only to help minimise the size of the points margin at the end.

There was better news for the New Zealand contingent in the Romney Shears Australian crossbred final where Kirkpatrick successfully defended the title he won last year. Smith, the 2010 winner, was runner-up, Wairarapa shearer David Buick was third. and Te Kuiti shearers Mark Grainger and Digger Balme the next two, leaving Warnest to claim only the sixth-place money.

Australian-based multiple New Zealand representative, World and Golden Shears woolhandling champion Joanne Kumeroa won the Romney Shears Open woolhandling final in one of only a handful of competition appearances while battling cancer over the last year.  

Results of the transtasman tests at the Romney Shears, 160th Warrnambool Agricultural Show, on Saturday, October 26, 2013:

Shearing (12 sheep): Australia (Shannon Warnest 18min 6sec, 88.8pts; Robert Glover 19min 48sec, 89.48pts; Justin Dolphin 20min 45sec, 91.75pts)  270.03pts beat New Zealand (John Kirkpatrick 21min 38sec, 97.9pts; Dion Morrell 17min 51sec, 100.47pts; Rowland Smith 21min 50sec, 101.75pts) 300.12pts.

Woolhandling; Australia (Angela Wakeley, Kayla Garner) 43.08pts beat New Zealand (Keryn Herbert, Tia Potae) 46.7pts.

ENDS