Shearers Jack Fagan (left), Hemi Braddick (right) and team manager Digger Balme (middle) will represent New Zealand on the annual tour to the United Kingdom and France later this year. Photo: Dan Tasker
The New Zealand shearing team featuring Te Kūiti’s Jack Fagan fell just short of levelling the four-test series against Wales at the Corwen Shears.
Fagan partnering Eketahuna’s Hemi Braddick lost the fourth and final Welsh test in northern Wales by 0.9 points on July 25 to concede the series 3-1.
After losing the opening two tests at Epynt (July 15) and Cothi (July 19), Fagan and Braddick beat Wales by 2.5 points at the Royal Welsh Show in Llanelwedd to keep their hopes of a series comeback alive.
But it wasn’t to be as Welshmen Gwion Lloyd Evans and Gethin Lewis held on in Corwen.
New Zealand manager and Ōtorohanga farmer Digger Balme said the result reflected the strength of Welsh shearing, helped by the Kiwi boys getting used to shearing different sheep.
The five-week tour of the United Kingdom and France got off to a strong start at Lochearnhead in Scotland, where Fagan finished runner-up in the Scottish Blackface Shearing Championship open final.
Fagan and Clay Harris went on to fall short for New Zealand in an unofficial test against Scotland.
Fagan was joined by NZ debutant Braddick for the first of four Welsh tests starting at the Epynt Shears in mid Wales, where the pair were beaten by 6.5 points by Evans and Lewis.
The black singlets bounced back to beat England by 2.25 points in a one-off test at the Great Yorkshire Show in Harrogate, but were beaten again in the Welsh series in second test at Cothi.
The Kiwis kept hopes of a drawn series alive with a 2.5-point win at the Royal Welsh Show.
The competition aside, the Royal Welsh Show was one of the highlights of the “trip of a lifetime” for Balme.
“People need to put the Royal Welsh Show on their bucket list. It’s just unbelievable the atmosphere there and the number of people they get watching the shearing, just huge. There’s probably, I don’t know, 5000 people crammed in trying to watch the shearing” Balme said.
Reeling in the Welsh to draw the series proved a step to far for the New Zealanders, losing the fourth test by 0.9 points.
The Welsh are pencilled in for a return series in February and March, including a likely test match at annual New Zealand Shearing Championships in Te Kūiti.
