Don Macdonald kneels before his Macwool Maulers.

AN AUSTRALIAN team of young growers has won the prestigious beer-drinking competition at the Nanjing Wool Market Conference for the first time in 10 years amid accusations of foul play and too much beer spilled.

Teams from China, South Africa and Australia faced off in the first-past-the-post event, where six drinkers were tasked with drinking stubbies of Chinese beer in sequence, with each drinker only able to start when his preceding team member had placed his empty stubbie down.

Australia fielded two teams – Josh Lamb’s Team Australia Exporters and Don Macdonald’s Macwool Maulers, who face off in a tense final. The exporters defeated the Kiwi team to reach the final and the Maulers outdrank a Chinese team to do the same.

Mr Macdonald said his team of won the final easily.

“It’s only the second time in 12 years that Australia has won the beer drinking competition at the Nanjing Wool Market Conference.

“We beat Josh Lamb’s team, so the relationship is a little bit tender with Josh there at the moment.”

The Maulers included Ed Murphy, ‘Goondoobluie’, Mungindi; Henry Weston, ‘Baledmund’, Nymagee; Ryann McMullen, ‘Myall Park’, Brewarrina; Alex Knight, ‘Coonamon’, Coonabarabran; Jack McLaughlin, ‘Merryanbone’, Nyngan, and; Jack Green, ‘Mangoplah’, The Marra.

The exporters team comprised Joe Carlon, Angus Dawson, Liam Holland, George Austin, Johnathon David Dalla and Brett Gum.

“So we had an all-Australian final and yes our boys spilt a bit of beer, but they came home easily,” Mr Macdonald said.

“It was funny, particularly as we faced off against the other Aussie team and they were crying foul because we spilt too much grog,” he said.

“Michael Jackson (AWTA was the adjudicator) and once we knew we would be drinking against Australia I said to the boys in our team ‘don’t worry about how much you spill because the adjudicator is not going to knock one out to favour the other Australian team … and that’s exactly what happened.”

Mr Macdonald said the beer came in little narrow stubbies and the beer turned to froth quickly.

“So it did like they left a fair bit behind because it was all froth and once you let it stand for a few minutes there was an inch of beer in the bottom, but at the time it was all froth.”

However, Mr Lamb said not since New Zealand last won the cup several years ago has so much beer been spilt by one team.

“Direct orders from their coach Don MacDonald no doubt.

“Team Australia Exporters were instructed to maintain their integrity at all times in regards to spilling and not leaving a drop – that’s how we do business,” he said.

“A formal ruling from the organising committee in regards to amount of beer loss by the ‘Maulers’ has been lodged by ACWEP and waiting to see if upheld.

“A moral victory off the back of our moto – winning with humility or losing with dignity.”

Mr Lamb said the exporters had a full clean out for the competition after last year’s poor performance in the competition with him replacing all former team members.

“It was pleasing to see an all Australian final for the first time in 12 years with both teams having seen off the South Africans, New Zealanders and two Chinese teams enroute to the final.”

Mr Lamb rejected a claim that an exporter team member was seen “jumping the gun” in an earlier heat and drinking his stubbie before his preceding team mate had finished, warranting disqualification.

“There were questions raised,” a source said.

“There was plenty of beer spilled, but that was equal among all the teams.”

However, Mr Lamb denied the quick drinking incident ever happened.

“At Don’s age, clear vision from that distance is an issue.

“We were late to start actually, busy discussing renaming the Yangtze River the Riverina Strait.”

Mr Macdonald said the competition was held before a conference audience of 450 people to the tune of Queen’s ‘We will rock you’.

He said the conference contest was once a tug of war but the Chinese worked out that they were never going to beat South Africa, Australia or New Zealand in such an event.

“So they switched it to a drinking competition and everyone thought this will go the same way as the tug of war, but they actually have dominated it – they won seven or eight times in 12 years.

He said Australia also won the competition in year two, but this was the first time an Australian team has won it since then.

“They were pretty chuffed.”

Both Australian beer drinking teams with adjudicators Michael Jackson, Rosstan Mazey (Woolworks NZ)  and Jiang Chen NJWM.