Big Win For Australian Fleecos In Wool Test Match

The Australian woolhandling team has beaten the odds to end a New Zealand transtasman series winning streak on the Kiwis’ home tables at the Golden Shears international shearing championships in Masterton.

The two countries went into Friday night’s test with the Kiwis going for a fifth win in a row in the annual home-and-away matches, having won 35 of the 45 tests since the first in 1998, and with Australia having not had an away win since victory in Masterton in 2015.

A rookie Kiwi team of Masterton woolhandler Cushla Abraham and Napier’s Angela Stevens scored a surprise win over a much more experienced Australian team in Bendigo, Vic, when the series resumed in November after a two-year hiatus amid the restrictions of the global pandemic and was the TAB favourite paying $1.50 to win.

But the night in Masterton belonged to the Australian fleecos, at $2.50, retaining Gilgandra, NSW, contractor Racheal Hutchison, in her Australian-record 12th transtasman match, and introducing international newcomer Mark Purcell, from Hamilton, Vic.

They finished the eight-fleece task first and eventually scoring victory with a 27pts margin.

It completed possibly Australia’s biggest day at the Golden Shears, which when started in 1961 came with a claim to being the Australasian championship.

Earlier in the day, northwestern New South Wales teenager Tyron Cochrane won the Golden Shears Junior shearing final, the first Golden Shears championship win in Masterton since Australian shearing industry legend John Allan won the foundation Intermediate ttile 62 years ago.

Hutchison has also reached the Golden Shears Open woolhandling semi-finals, and Purcell reached the quarterfinals.

There was even a personal connection in the test match win and that of Cochrane, Hutchison saying: “His father works for us.”

Much of the credit for the green-and-gold win was put with Hutchison, whose sons Maverick, 15, and Conrad, 13, shore in the Golden Shears Novice heats, on what was their first trip to Nnew Zealand, along with sister Sasha, 10.

Purcell and Shear Sports Australia chairman Dave Lawrence said it was her preparation, which included the pair taking-on an Elite Shearing Industry Training course on Tuesday and competing in the Wairarapa Pre-Shears championships on Wednesday, which paved the way for the success.

She was determined, the only Australian win in her previous 11 test match wins being 12 years ago in Christchurch, and by the time the match was over she felt confident the judges would see it Australia’s way.

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