NEW Zealand’s shearing and wool handling team is gathering in Western Australia this weekend hopeful of a rare clean sweep of the trans-Tasman machine shearing, blade shearing and wool handling tests.

The international tests will take place during the Australian National Shearing and Wool Handling Championships that start today in Katanning, about 280km south-east of Perth, and end on Sunday.

The events mark the 50th anniversary of the first of the annual home-and-away matches, a machine shearing test, held at Euroa, Victoria, in 1974.

The trans-Tasman will take place on Sunday evening. Click here to see the program for the entire weekend. Got to the Sports Shear Australia Facebook page to access live links for the daily events from today.

While Shearing Sports New Zealand teams dominated the earlier trans-Tasman test era, it hasn’t won a clean sweep or a machine shearing test in Australia since 2010. And with the series abandoned from 1984 to 1997 because of trade union conflict in the Australian industry, the Australians have dominated over the ensuing years and have, in all, won 38 of the 71 machine shearing tests.

Wool handling tests were introduced in 1998, and New Zealand has since won 36 of the 47 matches. While the black singlets have won 15 of 16 blades shearing tests since 2010, Australians Johnathon Dalla and Andrew Murray claimed an historic victory last year in Jamestown, South Australia.

Kiwi blade shearers Tony Dobbs, of Fairlie, and Tim Hogg, of Timaru, regained New Zealand’s ascendancy in a narrow victory in their latest test at the Waimate Spring Shears a fortnight go, although Dalla claimed fastest time, best pen points and best points over all. The blades teams are intact for a rematch this weekend.

The machine shearing and wool handling teams have one survivor from the teams that won tests at the Golden Shears in Masterton in March, in Leon Samuels, of Roxburgh, who retained a place by winning the Golden Shears Open shearing final. He is joined by PGG Wrightson Vetmed National Shearing Circuit third placegetter Jack Fagan, of Te Kuiti, and New Zealand Merino Shears Open champion Chris Vickers, of Shag Point, coastal Otago.

New Zealand has a newly-selected wool handling trans-Tasman combination of 2023 world championship representative Ngaio Hanson, of Eketahuna, and former trans-Tasman team member and 2019 world teams champion Pagan Rimene, of Alexandra.

The team is managed by shearing judge, instructor, gear supplier representative and small-block farmer Russell Knight, of Apiti, with Rose Puha, of Kimbolton, as wool handling judge.

The Australian machine shearing team is former multiple national champion Daniel McIntyre, of Glen Innes, New South Wales, current Australian champion Nathan Meaney, of Kapunda, South Australia, and 27 year-old Josh Bone, of Nhill, Victoria. The wool handlers are current Australian champion Alexander Schoff, of Chinchilla, Queensland, and Marlene Whittle, of Maryborough, Victoria. Shearing team manager is recent nine-hour wether shearing record holder and contractor Steve Mudford.

Of all those in the three tests, McIntyre is the most experienced with 17 tests consecutively since 2013, and victories for Australia in 14 of the 19 he has contested.

With time in Australia, during which Fagan reached an open final at Kojonup and Samuels has won a quick shear, the team New Zealand team is better prepared than most for the trans-Tasman trip, with Vickers having the added benefit of working many seasons around Katanning and nearby Wagin.

Dobbs, with 12 consecutive trans-Tasman tests to his name, and Hogg, with two tests in 2012, arrived in West Australia on October 14. Dobbs headed for friends with sheep on which to practice, and with Hogg and former national representative Mike McConnell has worked for a contractor around Katanning, with the blades and with a handpiece.

The NZ team will also have the chance to contest open events during the championships which are otherwise for state teams from throughout Australia.

Trans-Tasman tests expected to be tight contests

Sports Shear Australia spokesman Tom Kelly said the trans-Tasman machine shearing event is shaping up as a “real contest”.

“New Zealand has got a couple of shearers that are very dual purpose in their shearing (Fagan and Vickers); they’re not just crossbred shearers.

“And Samuels will handle the Merinos,” he said.

“I think it is going to be pretty tightly contested, as it will be with the wool handling and the blades.

“I think the trans-Tasman teams are as evenly poised as they’ve ever been,” Mr Kelly said.

“The Kiwis have got their selection pretty good there.

“Young Fagan was at a competition here in WA last week and he top-qualified in the heats in a big field and the word was that he was handling the Merinos really well.”

Mr Kelly said Josh Bone, 27, is considered a big prospect in the trans-Tasman contests and an example of succession through the Sports Shear Australia ranks working well.

Mr Kelly said ‘Slim’ Schoff and Marlene Whittle are also expected to do well in the wool handling.

“If you’re a betting man, I think it is pretty evenly poised, I reckon.”

Result of the trans-Tasman blade shearing test at the Waimate Spring Shears on October 12, 2024:

Blades (4 sheep): New Zealand 120.416 (Tony Dobbs 13m 30.84s, 59.042pts; Tim Hogg 14m 32.47s, 61.374pts) beat Australia 123.62pts (Johnathon Dalla 13m 28.3s, 53.915pts; Andrew Murray 15m 29.13s, 69.707pts.

ENDS