Kiwi treble at World championship shears

The Allflex New Zealand Shearing and Woolhandling team has dominated the last day of the 18th World Championships today by winning three of the six titles in France.

Pride of place went to Canterbury blade shearers Allan Oldfield and Tony Dobbs who scored a double, causing a boilover by beating previous regular champions South Africa in the teams final and then finishing first and fourth respectively in the Individual championship, with Oldfield beating defending champion Mayenseke Shweni.

Dobbs had previously won the indicidual title at the 1988 World championships in Masterton.

The other triumph was in the teams woolhandling final where Sheree Alabaster, of Taihape, and Pagan Karauria, of Alexandra, maintained New Zealand’s stranglehold on the title, from the victory by Joel Henary and Maryanne Baty in Invercargill two years ago.

The New Zealand national anthem was thus played after each of the first three presentations in the lengthy closing ceremony and prizegiving.Karauria was third in the individual final won by Aled Jones, of Wales, and Alabaster was fourth.

It was however only the third time in the 18 championships since the first in 1977 that New Zealand did not win either of the two machine shearing titles.

Hawke’s Bay shearers Rowland Smith and Cam Ferguson were third in the teams event won by Scottish shearers Gavin Mutch and Calum Shaw, and were second and third in the individual event won by Richard Jones, of Wales.

The teams event was a big moment for Scotland which will host the next champion ships at the 20th anniversary Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh in 2022.

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