Glen Innes' champion shearer is off to the sport's equivalent of the World Cup.
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Daniel McIntyre won first place in shearing at the 2019 Glen Innes show, though pipped at the post by hometown boy Luke Foster in Guyra. But off the back of a win at the Trans-Tasman shearing comp earlier this month, Daniel McIntyre has won a place at the World Cup in France.
The Australian team of Mr McIntyre, Jason Wingfield and Callum O'Brien beat the Kiwis in Masterton in early March. It was a close-run thing at the Golden Shears International Shearing and Woolhandling Championships, with the Australians winning by just four points in their sixth win in ten annual matches.
But Mr McIntyre isn't sure if they will be able to repeat the effort in le Dorat, in France in early July.
"It's a long shot, in the sheep they shear over there it's probably going to be a Kiwi that wins," he said.
The French competition will be on cross-bred sheep, which are quite different from Australian merinos. That's going to put the Australian team at a major disadvantage.
It's not the first World event for Daniel McIntyre, who competed at the 2005 World Championship in Toowoomba and is the four-time Australian champion. He joked that time he didn't need to fly. As an individual he came second in the world, and the team won that year as well.
Daniel is Australian captain at the event, because he is the country's champion shearer.
"The sport side of it's probably bigger now than it was back in (early 20th century Queensland shearer) Jackie Howe's day, when they didn't have competitions aside from records," he said.
The former world champion says there are a number of up-and-comers living in Glen Innes or from the town, ready to take up the tradition. Byron and Adam Campbell are getting better he said, and Jeremy Newberry who now lives in Guyra is competitive at open level and is closing on state selection in May.
"We've had some good shearers come out of Glen Innes, no doubt about that."
The skill is about footwork, athleticism and speed, he said. Shearers are judged not just on speed but on 'second cuts' - the number of times they need to cut wool a second time. They're also judged on whether they cut the sheep or leave wool unshorn.