Gisborne woolhandler Joel Henare at the Canterbury Shears in 2016. Photo \/ SSNZ<\/p>\n
The opportunity to represent New Zealand on an international stage has been thrown wide open.<\/p>\n
Both the winner and runner-up in the New Zealand Shears open woolhandling final in Alexandra on September 30 will now represent New Zealand in the Transtasman series revival test match in Australia three weeks later.<\/p>\n
The decision comes after 2021 winner Joel Henare confirmed he is unavailable for the 2022-2023 series and intends stepping back from a usually heavy schedule.<\/p>\n
Henare has competed in a series-record 14 transtasman woolhandling tests since his first in Hay, NSW, in 2008 at the age of 15.<\/p>\n
He has also won 113 individual Open titles, including two World Championships, along with two teams World Championships titles.<\/p>\n
Henare will be at the two days of the Merino Shears shearing and woolhandling championships which open the 2022-2023 New Zealand Shearing Sports season in Alexandra on September 30-October 1.<\/p>\n
He will fulfill the dual roles of both competing and commentating, with plans do the same at the Waimate Spring Shears in South Canterbury a week later.<\/p>\n
Henare will then return to Gisborne to help with the season's opening event in the North Island - his home Poverty Bay A and P Shears on October 15.<\/p>\n
From there, though, he is ruling himself out of most of the rest of the competition season, which includes being unlikely to contest an eight-show series to find New Zealand's two woolhandlers for the 2023 World Championships in Scotland.<\/p>\n
Shearing Sports New Zealand will send a team of three machine shearers, two woolhandlers and two blade shearers for the separate Transtasman tests during the Australian shearing and Woolhandling Championships in Bendigo, Vic, on October 21-22.<\/p>\n
They will be the first tests since the New Zealand home leg at the Golden Shears in Masterton in March 2022, just three weeks before the first pandemic lockdown and a near shutdown of international travel.<\/p>\n
Those already confirmed in the team are Southland machine shearers Leon Samuels and Nathan Stratford, winners of the PGG Wrightson Vetmed national shearing circuit in 2021 and 2022 respectively.<\/p>\n
The third machine shearer will be the best-performing other New Zealand shearer in the Merino Shears Open shearing championship.<\/p>\n
The blade shearers will be the 2019 World Champion pairing of Allan Oldfield, of Geraldine, and Tony Dobbs, of Fairlie.<\/p>\n
Team manager and shearing judge is Greg Stuart, of Alexandra, and Gail Haitana, of Bulls, travels as woolhandling judge.<\/p>\n
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New Zealand woolhandling team places on the line at Merino Shears - New Zealand Herald<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gisborne woolhandler Joel Henare at the Canterbury Shears in 2016. Photo \/ SSNZ The opportunity to represent New Zealand on an international stage has been thrown wide open. Continue reading