Shearing record-breaker and top UK farmer Matthew Smith back in the Bay

Former Hawke's Bay shearer Matt Smith is representing England in the world championships in March in Masterton.

Record-breaking former Hawke’s Bay shearer and award-winning British farmer Matthew Smith will shear at the Dannevirke show tomorrow, 24 hours after arriving to represent England in the world championships in Masterton in March.

Smith, brother of New Zealand team hopeful and 2014 world champion Rowland Smith, set an eight-hour ewes record at Waitara Station, between Napier and Taupō, in 2010.

Rowland is based in Maraekakaho.

Matt Smith later moved to England, where, six years later, at Trefranck, where he farms in Cornwall, he set a nine-hour record which survived until three weeks ago.

He confirmed from England that he expected to arrive in New Zealand on Thursday and head for Dannevirke, where opposition is likely to include his brother.

A week later, Rowland shears in a Shearing Sports New Zealand selection series final, chasing the second of the two black-singlet positions in the glamour machine shearing event during the Golden Shears on March 4-7.

The brothers lined up for opposing countries in the 2023 world championships in Scotland.

Hawke’s Bay is playing a big part in the England team preparation, with Smith working for Flaxmere contractor Colin Watson Paul, and teammate Nick Greaves having returned this summer to work for Napier contractor Brendan Mahony.

On Saturday, Rowland was runner-up in the Taihape Shears Open final, won by British ewes record holder Gethin Lewis, who is working for Mahony for a ninth downunder summer in a row.

In an event Smith had won 10 times, Lewis, who just missed a place in the Welsh team for the world championships, became the first Welsh shearer to win an open final in New Zealand since 2014.

Fellow Welsh shearer Rhys Davies, also working for Mahony, won the intermediate final at Taihape.

Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter based in Napier with 53 years’ experience in the news industry, including major shearing competitions in New Zealand, Australia, Britain, Norway and France.