UK tests coming up for New Zealand shearing team

Photo / File

A new New Zealand shearing team is about to pick up the pieces of a shattered World Championships dream on the Wools of New Zealand tour of five test matches against the new best teams in the world in Scotland, England and Wales.

The team is Masterton brothers-in-law, Paerata Abraham and David Gordon, who will shear against Scotland World Championships third placegetters Calum Shaw and Hamish Mitchell in a final this weekend at the Lochearnhead Shears’ Scottish Blackface Championships.

It will be followed by a single test against World Championship runner-up England at the Great Yorkshire Show on July 12.

There will then be three tests against the new World Champion country Wales, at Cothi, the Royal Welsh Show and Corwen.

The Welsh team at Cothi will be Gethin Lewis and Dylan Wyn Jones, who toured New Zealand late in the summer, but a new team will be chosen from events at the Royal Show and could include new World Champions, Gwion Evans and Richard Jones.

New Zealand was represented at last week’s World Championships in Scotland by Rowland Smith and Leon Samuels, who were sixth in the teams’ final.

Abraham won his place in the tour team by winning the New Zealand Shears Circuit final at Te Kuiti earlier this year, and Gordon was selected based on his placing in the New Zealand Shears open final when others became unavailable for the test series.