Welshmen Evan And Jones Head For Big Shear Kiwi Challenge

Shearing Sports New Zealand

January 14, 2013

Welshmen Evan And Jones Head For Big Shear Kiwi Challenge

The Welsh shearing team will begin its preparation for a bid to win to become the first Northern Hemisphere team to beat New Zealand in a shearing test series in New Zealand when it opens a six-show tour at Tauranga on Saturday.

The team of Welsh champion Gareth Lloyd Evans and Richard Jones beat Kiwis John Kirkpatrick and Nathan Stratford in the most recent test between the two countries in Corwen, Wales, to tie a four-test series 2-2 last July.

The opening hit-out downunder this week will be against an Invitation Team comprising Mark Grainger, of Te Kuiti, and Hastings-based Northland shearer Doug Smith, preceding the first test against Napier shearer Kirkpatrick and Stratford, of Invercargill, during the Agrodome Shears at the Rotorua A and P Show at Ngongotaha on January 27.

Grainger and Smith were invited after finishing fourth and fifth respectively in the New Zealand Lambshearing Championships final won by Te Kuiti icon David Fagan in Raglan on January 5.

The events on Saturday, including the Tauranga Open, Senior, Intermediate and Junior events, will also be shorn on lambs.

Grainger is the son of 1985 Golden Shears Open champion Paul Grainger, while Smith is a brother of 2011 New Zealand Open champion and national team member Rowland Smith, with whom he holds a World tally record of 1066 ewes in eight hours.

Evans, from Denbigh, and Jones, from Corwen, were selected at the Royal Welsh Show after Evans won the Champion Shearer of Wales final, and immediately lost their first test together.

But the fortunes against reigning Golden Shears and New Zealand Open champion Kirkpatrick and Invercargill shearer and New Zealand Circuit champion Stratford were reversed just two days later in a dramatic climax to the Welsh season at the Corwen Shears.

The Shearing Sports New Zealand season of 62 competitions throughout the country steps-up dramatically this week, with six events in three days..

The Northern Southland Community Shears will be on Friday, with separate shearing and woolhandling competitions at two woolsheds near Lumsden, and vying with Tauranga for the limelight on Saturday will be the Wairoa A and P Show Shears in Northern Hawke’s Bay, the Golden Bay show at Takaka, and the New Zealand Crossbred Lambshearing and Woolhandling Championships and at the Winton A and P Show in Southland. The Horowhenua A and P Show Shears will be held in Levin on Sunday.

The itinerary for the Wales tour of New Zealand is: Jan 19 v Invitation Team, at Tauranga; Jan 27 v New Zealand (first test), at Rotorua; Feb 2, v Invitation Team, at Reefton; Feb 9, v New Zealand (second test), at Balclutha; Feb 16, v Invitation Team, at Gore; Feb 24, v New Zealand (third test), at Pahiatua.

Wales v NZ, 4th test, at Corwen-JK, Nathan S, WBuick, John Davies, JohnDavies, Ricard Jones, Gareth Evans
The teams for the upcoming shearing tests between New Zealand and Wales, pictured after a Welsh victory at Corwen, Wales, last July. From left New Zealanders Nathan Stratford, of Invercargill, John Kirkpatrick, of Napier, and manager Willie Buick, of Masterton, and Welsh manager John T.L.Davies, of Brecon, and shearers Garth Lloyd Evans, of Denbigh, and Richard Jones, of Corwen. Evans and Jones open their tour against an Invitation Team at the Tauranga Shears on Saturday (jan 19).

ENDS

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