Shearing: Mutch too canny for Kiwi shearers

Taranaki-based Scottish farmer Gavin Mutch brought off a telling victory by an overseas shearer in New Zealand when he won the national lamb-shearing championship on Saturday. Mutch, married to a New Zealander, won the final at the Western Shears at Raglan.

Last March he became the first overseas shearer to qualify for the Golden Shears open in Masterton, although in the earliest years of the event in the 1960s visiting Australian teams had automatic entry.