New Zealand woolhandlers Tia Potae (centre) after her win in the Jamestown Show open woolhandling final in South Australia, when she and teammate Cushla Abraham beat Australia in a transtasman woolhandling test match. Photo / SSNZ
New Zealand woolhandlers Tia Potae (centre) after her win in the Jamestown Show open woolhandling final in South Australia, when she and teammate Cushla Abraham beat Australia in a transtasman woolhandling test match. Photo / SSNZ
The woolhandling combo of Cushla Abraham and Tia Potae saved the night for the Shearing Sports New Zealand team by beating Australia in the first leg of the 2023-24 transtasman shearing and woolhandling series.
It was New Zealand’s only win in the three tests held from October 21 — the first day of the Australian national shearing and woolhandling championships in Jamestown, South Australia.
New Zealand were beaten by Australia in a blade shearing test for the first time since blades were introduced to the series in 2010, and the best of New Zealand’s fine wool shearers were unable to get a first machine-shearing win in Australia since the same year.
Team manager Mark Barrowcliffe said Abraham and Potae worked out the judging system “very well” and did an “outstanding job”.
He said the shearers gave it 100 per cent but were “out-shorn by some Aussie shearers who were really at the top of their game”.
“Our shearers notably improved with each shear but needed more time in the saddle,” he said.
It was a particularly special day for Potae as she completed a unique Merino wool double by adding the Jamestown open woolhandling title to the New Zealand Merino Shears open title she won in Alexandra, Central Otago, last month.
Abraham is from Masterton, and Potae is from the Coromandel settlement Harataunga but based mainly over the years in Milton, South Otago.
The pair scored what was the third away-team transtasman woolhandling win in a row.
Abraham and Napier woolhandler Angela Stevens won at their debuts in Bendigo, Victoria, last November, but saw the fortunes reversed when Australians Racheal Hutchison and Mark Purcell won in Masterton in March.
Abraham and Potae beat the Victorian pairing of Purcell, from Macarthur, and new teammate Jayne Griffin, of Raywood, near Bendigo, by 6.75pts, with advantages in all aspects of time and quality.
New Zealand has won 36 of the 47 tests since woolhandling became a part of the series in 1998.
Australians Nathan Meaney, of Bethel, SA, Daniel McIntyre, of Glen Innes, NSW, and Sam Mackrill, of Nannella, Vic, beat the New Zealand team of Nathan Stratford, of Invercargill, Roxburgh-based Leon Samuels, of Invercargill, and Angus Moore, from Ward, in Marlborough, by 18.13pts.
It was dominated by the performance of Meaney, who shore the 12 sheep in 15min 49sec — finishing 1min 16sec before next-man-off Mackrill, with Moore next to finish in 17min 17sec.
Meaney and McIntyre each finished with better combined time and quality points than all three Kiwis, although Stratford had the second-best quality points, behind only McIntyre, the only shearer with a sub-20 penalties score.
The Shearing Sports NZ team in Australia for the transtasman shearing and woolhandling tests: Angus Moore (left), Cushla Abraham, Allen Gemmell, Mark Barrowcliffe, Tia Potae, Tony Dobbs, Nathan Stratford, Leon Samuels, and Heidi Middleton.
Australia has won 16 machine-shearing tests and New Zealand five in the 13 years since New Zealand’s last win in Australia.
Of the 70 since the series was founded in 1974, Australia has won 38 and New Zealand 32.
The biggest applause of the night was for South Australian blades shearer Johnathon Dalla, of Warooka, who teamed with Andrew Murray, of Dripstone, NSW, to score Australia’s first transtasman blades test win since the hand-shearing craft was introduced to the series in 2010.
Dalla, who has shorn in all but the first of the 15 tests, individually hammered New Zealand shearers Tony Dobbs, of Fairlie, and Allen Gemmell, of Loburn, shearing the three sheep in the fastest time (14min 5sec) and, dropping just four penalty strokes on the board and carding the best total almost 15pts better than Dobbs, the better of the two Kiwis.
All points added, the winning margin was 8.08pts, following New Zealand’s win by more than 11 points when the sides met at Waimate last month.
The next woolhandling and machine-shearing tests will be at the Golden Shears in Masterton in March.
Results of the transtasman shearing and woolhandling test matches at the Australian national shearing and woolhandling championships at Jamestown, South Australia, on Saturday, October 21:
Machine shearing (12 sheep): Australia (Nathan Meaney 15min 49sec, 71.53sec; Daniel McIntyre 17min 59sec, 73.78pts; Sam Mackrill 17min 5sec, 81.83pts) 227.15pts, beat New Zealand (Nathan Stratford 18min 45sec, 78.92pts; Leon Samuels 17min 47sec, 82.85pts; Angus Moore 17min 27sec, 83.52pts) 245.28pts.
Blade shearing (3 sheep): Australia (Johnathon Dalla 14min 5sec, 64.68pts; Andrew Murray 16min 47sec, 88.02pts) 152.6pts, beat New Zealand (Tony Dobbs 14min 28sec, 79.4pts; Allen Gemmell 14min 19sec, 81.28pts) 160.68pts.
