Australian shearing legend Daniel McIntyre, show at a trans-Tasman test match at the Golden Shears in Masterton. Photo – Pete Nikolaison.

NEW Zealand’s shearing team is likely to start the outsider in a trans-Tasman test match being shorn at the two-day 60^th anniversary Southern Shears Shearing and Woolhandling Championships in Gore this week.

The TAB has Australia as $1.50 favourite for the clash on Saturday, despite the presence of two newcomers in the three-man team, while New Zealand was on Monday quoted at $2.40.

Australia, with veteran Daniel McIntyre at the helm, will be going for a fourth consecutive win in the annual home-and-away matches, having won in Katanning, West Australia, in October 2024, the Golden Shears in Masterton last March, and Jamestown, South Australia, in October.

McIntyre, from Glen Innes, New South Wales, is joined by 2025 Australian champion Sam Bacon, from Jamestown, South Australia,  and Sam Byers, from Ross, Tasmania. The New Zealand team comprises veteran international David Buick, of Pongaroa, three-times national shearing circuit champion Angus Moore, from Marlborough, and fine wool Merino specialist Chris Vickers.

Of the 74 tests since the first home-and-away series in 1974-1975, Australia has won 41, being particularly dominant in more recent years with 15 wins in the last 20 tests dating back to a match at Errowanbang, NSW, in 2014, when McIntyre and Buick were both in the teams. Of McIntyre’s 22 tests, Australia has won 17.

Merino wethers have in recent New Zealand tests comprised half the contest’s 12 sheep for each shearer, along with six New Zealand crossbreds (three longwool and three second-shear).

The Merinos have generally taken 65-70 per cent of the time, but in Gore each shearer will shear 14 sheep, comprising six Merino ewes, four crossbred long wool and four crossbred second-shear, which could even-up the time points, calculated at a point for every 20 seconds.

David Buick, who has shorn more than 20 tests for New Zealand and faces another trans-Tasman match in Gore on Saturday, pictured at the Wairarapa A&P Show in November. Photo – SSNZ.

But Buick said during the week he hadn’t shorn a Merino in the four months since the test in Australia, and he might not have any practice on Merinos before Saturday’s match.

He’s putting his faith in gear borrowed from a more Merino-expert shearer in Otago-Southland, and the fine wool capabilities of his South Island teammates.

Buick is going for more than just a test win in Gore, where he will also shear for the North Island against the South Island and chase the South Island Shearer of the Year and Southern Shears Open titles.

An anniversary dinner will be held on Thursday night and over 150 shearers and wool handlers will compete over the next two days.

On Sunday, at Pukekohe, a New Zealand team of Northland shearer Toa Henderson and Jack Fagan, of Te Kuiti, will shear against the Wales team of Gwion Evans and Llyr Jones in the second test of three tests in the Wools of New Zealand Series. New Zealand won the first narrowly at Aria on Waitangi Day.