Cothi Shears: Wales beats NZ in test series opener

Toa Henderson, who shore 20 lambs in 11min 48sec in Saturday's test match in Wales, pictured in March when he won selection in the team with victory in the New Zealand open final in Te Kuiti. Photo / SSNZ

Two Welsh shearers who’ve shorn numerous summers in New Zealand have struck the first blow to the hopes of New Zealand shearers Toa Henderson and Jack Fagan, by winning a new test series in Wales.

Shearing Welsh lambs at the Cothi Shears, in Carmarthenshire, on Saturday, Gethin Lewis and Llyr Jones beat the Wools of New Zealand team, Henderson and Fagan, by a comfortable margin of 6.1pts.

But while the Welsh dominated the quality points, it wasn’t as comfortable in the race for best time points, with Northland gun Henderson shearing 11min 48sec, one of the faster times by a New Zealand shearer in a 20-sheep final, and putting a sheep around Welsh shearer-of-the-moment and second-man-off Lewis, with 34 seconds separating the pair on the clock.

A short while earlier, King Country shearer Fagan, a former Royal Welsh Open winner, blasted through 20 lambs in 13min 1sec to be first home in the five-man Cothi Shears Open final,

While he beat second-man-off and current World Champion Gwion Lloyd Evans by 25 seconds, Fagan had to settle for fourth place, as Lewis claimed his third individual success in 11 days.

Lewis, who shears for Hawke’s Bay contractor Brendan Mahony, beat Henderson and Fagan to win the Great Yorkshire Open final in England on July 9.

Last weekend, he shore 696 sheep in eight hours to set a new British ewe-shearing record, in what was also part of a successful bid for the two-stand record.

Lewis had the best overall points in the test, while Jones was just pipped for the honour and had the best quality points, while in the open final, Lewis had the best quality points.

While Henderson’s time in the test was more than a minute quicker than Fagan’s open final and both the test and open final at Cothi last year, Fagan shore 11min 41sec in winning the Corwen Shears open title last year.

But Welsh commentator Huw Condron believes the fastest time ever for a 20-sheep final was the 10min 30sec by New Zealander Paul Avery in winning the Royal Welsh Open in 2007.

He beat a previous record of 10min 36sec attributed to Fagan’s father, New Zealand shearing legend Sir David Fagan.

Condron had a clear memory of Avery’s achievement, saying: “I was his pen-man.”

Another New Zealand shearer to break 11 minutes in such a final in the UK was Hawke’s Bay gun John Kirkpatrick, with 10m 59s at Corwen in 2009.

Read more shearing and woolhandling stories here.

The second test of the current tour will be shorn on Wednesday at the Royal Welsh Show, where Fagan had a big day last year, winning the Royal Welsh Open for a second time and, with Wairarapa shearer David Buick, a test match, and tie-up a series Wales ultimately won 2-1 with victory at the Corwen Shears a few days later.

Fagan, who was second-fastest in the open heats, which saw Henderson’s early elimination after winning the French Open at his last start, said: “It was good to make the final today. We have a clear set of goals for Wednesday, so we are preparing for that.”

In March, he and Buick beat Lewis and Jones 3-0 in a series in New Zealand, and now he and Henderson, while out to keep the Wales series in the Northern Hemisphere alive in the last two tests, will also be out to at least keep the balance on the tour, with a 2-2 record to date, having had wins over England and France and losses to Scotland and Wales.

Results:

International (20 lambs): Wales 94.6pts (Gethin Lewis 12m 22s, 47.15pts; Llyr Jones 13m 3s, 47.45pts), New Zealand Toa Henderson 100.7pts (Toa Henderson 11m 48s, 49.7pts; Jack Fagan 12m 59s, 51pts). Weles won by 6.1pts.

Cothi open final (20 lambs): Gethin Lewis (Wales) 14m 15s, 52.1pts, 1; Gareth Daniel (Wales) 14m 26s, 53.45pts, 2; Gwion Lloyd Evans (Wales) 13m 26s, 57.2pts, 3; Jack Fagan (New Zealand) 13m 1s, 59.7pts, 4; Ian Jones (Wales) 14m 37s, 61.65pts, 5.