You may find you may have to do a combination of coat king, thinners & clipping
Thanks for your replies and sorry I haven't posted back before now! Aljeana you are quite right, I ended up working over a hot grooming table for hours
wetting their coats using the Coat King and still these bits of sticky out hair wouldn't budge. I didn't think I couldn't pull it out with them being neutered.
I ended up using the Coat King on heads, hair forward first (worked well) but had to lightly clip down backs unfortunately but then went down their necks, shoulders and backs again with the Coat King to blend it in. Having said that, I used thinning scissors/Coat King on legs and blended feathering in with the same tools. They still look natural and I'm not unhappy with the result although I would rather hand strip the lot - I really don't think it can happen. My boy has soooo much coat and tends to get very hot for some reason so I had to get quite a bit of hair off him to make him comfortable. My bitch hates being groomed anyway (she's pretty feisty LOL) even though I have always been very careful, never caught her with anything or pulled a matt out and hurt her - and she's been on the table and groomed from a week after I brought her home at 8 weeks - with a soft brush of course.
So thanks again for your advice much appreciated