Fagan and Henderson for the UK tests

Northland shearer Toa Henderson in the New Zealand Open Shearing Championship win which gained him a place in the New Zealand team for the first time, for the 2025 Wools of New Zealand team British tour. Photo / SSNZ

New Zealand Shears Open champion Toa Henderson will join Te Kūiti’s Jack Fagan for the Wools of New Zealand Shearing tour in Europe.

It will comprise at least six shearing test matches across four countries in the United Kingdom and France this year.

Henderson will be in the black singlet with silver fern for the first time after he earned his place with a win in Te Kūiti on March 29.

In contrast, it will be the third test series in a row for Te Kūiti shearer Fagan, after a UK tour last year and a transtasman series in the summer.

Te Kūiti shearer Jack Fagan, will make his third New Zealand team shearing tour when he and Northland gun Toa Henderson head to the UK at the end of June. Photo / SSNZ.

Fagan makes the trip as the third placegetter in the New Zealand Shears Circuit final.

Winner and New Zealand-based Scots international Gavin Mutch is ineligible for New Zealand team selection, while runner-up Mark Grainger, of Te Kūiti, is unable to spare the six weeks away from his farm with drought ravaging the King Country.

With Grainger away shearing on Sunday, father Paul Grainger, who won the Golden Shears Open in 1985 and managed the team to the UK in 2015-2016, said: “It’s a shame. He was really torn about what to do.

“He’s taken on the farm, and the season – it’s the worst I’ve ever seen in King Country – has just made it too hard.”

The team this year will be managed by shearing judge Neil Fagan, who had several seasons shearing in the UK including a senior win at Corwen.

The tour will open with tests against Scotland at the Lochearnhead Shears on June 28 and England at the Great Yorkshire Show at Harrogate on July 9.

They will face France at the French Shears in Boussac on July 13, and finish with threematches against Wales at Cothi on July 19, the Royal Welsh Show on July 23, and the Corwen Shears on July 26.

New Zealand teams have competed at shearing tests in the UK almost annually for more than 30 years, with reciprocal series against Wales in New Zealand now held every year.