Transtasman Shears Tests Bounce Back From Pandemic Hiatus

A transtasman shearing competition which dates back 48 years will resume this October after two years of cancellations in the global pandemic.

A Shearing Sports New Zealand team of three machine shearers, two blades shearers and two woolhandlers will face tests against Australia on the first day of the October 21-22 Australian national championships in Bendigo, Vic.

It will be New Zealand’s first international shearing sports competition since New Zealand won the machine shearing and woolhandling tests at the Golden Shears in Masterton in 2020, just a fortnight before New Zealand went into lockdown in the Government’s first big attempt to block the spread of Covid-19.

With the usual sequence of team selection events broken, the SSNZ national committee decided on August 15 that 2021 PGG Vetmed national shearing circuit winner Leon Samuels would join 2022 winner and fellow Invercargill shearer Nathan Stratford in the team, with the third member being the best-placed other New Zealand competitor in the Open final at the New Zealand Merino Shears opening the 2022-2023 SSNZ season in Alexandra on September 30-October 1.

It will be Stratford’s 15th transtasman test, and Samuels’ first.

The blades team will comprise 2021 Christchurch Golden Blades winner and 2019 World champion Allan Oldfield, of Geraldine, and the Open blades winner at the Waimate Spring Shears on October 7-8, and the woolhandlers will come from the 2021 and 2022 Merino Shears Open finals.

The 2021 final was won by Joel Henare, of Gisborne, who has contested a woolhandling series-record 14 tests

Shearing Sports New Zealand chairman Sir David Fagan said the team would be confirmed at the Merino Shears.

Annual home-and-away machine shearing tests at Euroa.Vic. each October and the Golden Shears in Masterton started in Australia in 1974.

Industrial issues in Australia ended the contests 10 years later, but they resumed in 1997 with Australian legs rotating among venues of the Australian championships. Woolhandling was added in 1998, and blades shearing began regular transtasman tests in 2010, with New Zealand legs held at either Christchurch or Waimate.

At the time the pandemic started Australia held the ascendancy in the machine shearing with 36 wins in 67 tests but New Zealand was on top in the woolhandling with wins in 34 of the 44 tests, and New Zealand had won all 13 blades shearing tests.

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