Following on from our report of the Scotland team’s success at the World Tug-of-War championships we’re pleased to report a massive run of success for the home nations in last weekend’s World Shearing Finals staged at the iconic Golden Shears, Masterton, New Zealand.
Leading the way was Scottish shearer Gavin Mutch, originally of Huntly, Aberdeenshire, and now based in New Zealand. Gavin showed the Kiwis and the rest of the world how it should be done by taking the championship in the individual competition, beating New Zealand’s Cam Ferguson in to second place.
Other home nations shearers performing well in the individual competition were Gareth Daniel of Wales who took fifth spot and England’s Adam Berry who finished one place behind in sixth.
In the individual Blade shearing final Wales’ Gareth Owen took fifth spot, with Scotland’s William Craig in sixth and in the Blade team competition the Gareth Owen teamed up with Elfed Jackson to steer Wales to third place, with Mark Armstrong joining with William Craig to get a fourth place for the Scotland duo. The English pairing of Andrew Wear and George Mudge finished in sixth, no mean feat bearing in mind George is now 65 years young!
Best placed of the home nations teams in the machine shearing final was the Scottish team of Gavin Mutch and Hamish Mitchell in second place, with the Welsh duo of Richard Jones and Gareth Daniel close behind in third. The team competition was won by New Zealand’s Cam Ferguson and John Kirkpatrick.
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