Locals land fleece honours

KAROLIN MACGREGOR – Tasmanian Country
7/6/19

A GOOD season had led to some excellent competition in the fleece section of this year’s Campbell Town Show.

A large number of top quality fleece made judging a tough job last weekend but in the end it was two of the state’s well known wool operations that claimed the major awards.  Carol and Allan Phillips took home the coveted New England Wool competition with a fleece from their Glen Stuart operation near Deddington. This is the third time the couple have won the New England competition.

“It’s very even and it’s a very true to type fleece with a nice fine crimp,” Mrs Phillips said of their winning entry.

“There are a lot of very good fleeces here this year though, so really anyone could have won it, it just comes down to the judge’s opinion.”

The winning Glen Stuart 15.2-micron fleece earned a score of 96.5. There were more than 40 entries in the competition this year and judge Andrew Raeber said the standard was exceptionally high.

“There were three or four there that could have won it and it just comes down to very small differences which separate them,” he said.

Mr Raeber said evenness, style and crimp from base to tip got the Glen Stuart fleece over the line.

The New England competition started at the show 10 years ago and Mr Raeber said over that time producers had improved in the presentation of their fleeces.

He said Tasmania was now leading the way in superfine wool production. “I think Tassie produces the best fine and superfine traditional-type wools in the world,” Mr Raeber said.

“I don’t think there's anywhere else in the world where there is still this amount of this type of wool.”