Kiwi guns head home tails-up after shears win

MEDIA RELEASE

On behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand

July 27, 2011

Kiwi guns head home tails-up after shears win

The New Zealand shearing team of Dion King and Rowland Smith has ended its UK tour with a series-winning victory over Wales.

The triumph came at the Corwen Shears in North Wales at the weekend, giving the pair a 3-1 series win, and an overall tour result of five wins and four defeats, after a 2-1 series win over England and single-test losses to the UK and to Scotland.

While Welshman Gareth Daniel was first to finish the 20 sheep in his bid to claim a tied series, taking 12min 9sec and heading Smith by 15 seconds, it was Smith who claimed overall individual honours on points, as New Zealand won by 2.5pts.

It was a big day for New Zealand which also claimed the first three places in the Corwen Shears Open final in front of a crowd team manager Bruce Walker estimated to number up to 2500, about the same as the population of the host town in Derbighshire, North Wales.

Smith’s brother, former World eight-hour ewe-shearing record holder Matthew, claimed possibly the biggest competition victory of his career by winning the contest, one of the closest in UK competition history.

He beat defending champion and Te Kuiti veteran David Fagan and Napier gun King by just five hundredths of a point, Fagan claiming second place with superior quality marks.

Rowland Smith also qualified, but tailed the six-man final after copping a maximum 5pt penalty on one sheep.

Young Irish shearer Jack Robinson, who works with the Smiths in Hawke’s Bay, continued a series of triumphs by winning the Corwen senior final, for which teenaged veteran’s son Jack Fagan failed to qualify by a single place.

Brendan Graham, a young Irishman who has had two seasons in the South Island, won the intermediate final in which young Southland shearer Linton Palmer was fourth.

All were honoured in an atmosphere supercharged with a haka led by Dannevirke shearer Paerata Abraham, who is heading to a new base in Australia.

But it’s not expected to keep him from a New Zealand summer joining the Smiths, David Fagan and King who return to New Zealand to prepare for an eight-round series in which about 20 others are expected to be after New Zealand’s two machine shearing places at the 15th World Championships at the Golden Shears in Masterton in March.

The qualifying series starts at the Canterbury Show in November and ends at the Southern Shears in Gore a fortnight before the World event.

Major results from the Corwen Shears were:

International (20 sheep): New Zealand 91.85pts (Rowland Smith 12min 24sec, 44.8pts; Dion King 12min 43sec, 47.05pts) beat Wales 93.9pts (Gareth Daniel 12min 9sec, 45.85pts; Richard Jones 13min 3sec, 48.05pts). New Zealand wins series 3-1.

Corwen Shears Open final (20 sheep): Matthew Smith (New Zealand) 11min 36sec, 43.15pts, 1; David Fagan (New Zealand) 12min 1sec, 43.2pts, 2; Dion King (New Zealand) 11min 24sec, 43.2pts, 3; Gareth Daniel (Wales) 12min 14sec, 43.7pts, 4; Gareth Evans (Wales) 11min 51sec, 44pts, 5; Rowland Smith (New Zealand) 11min 40sec, 48.85pts, 6.

ENDS

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