Great Raihania Shears Gets Rowland Smith On The Road Again

Champion shearer Rowland Smith sounded a loud warning he’ll be the man to catch in New Zealand’s 2023 World Championships hopes when on Friday as he won his home Great Raihania Shears Open final at the Hawke’s Bay Show.

The Maraekakaho farmer and agricultural contractor, now in his 16th season at the top level and the winner of at least 167 Open finals including the 2014 World Championship in Ireland, hadn’t competed since winning the New Zealand Shears Open final in Te Kuiti in April 2021.

Often a late starter each season due to his other commitments – although a winner of the Great Raihania title three times in row in 2015-2017, he reckoned he’d hardly shorn a sheep this season other than a couple while showing students the way at the Shears’ schools competition the previous day in the same Tomoana Showgrounds.

But he soon showed he had at least the quality to beat allcomers, after finishing second off the board and 42 seconds after Te Kuiti shearer who shore the four-man final of 20 full-wooled sheep on a cold day in Hastings in 16min 24sec, an average of 49.2 seconds a sheep caught, shorn and penned.

It was the aftermath that counted most, Smith needing almost of his 2.45pts advantage from judging of the sheep in the pens to win by 0.35pts from Fagan who thought he’d struck it really lucky on the day, with the combing and settling of the sheep. “They were … succulent,” he said.

Southern Hawke’s Bay shearer, Scotland international and 2012 World Champion Gavin Mutch was third, and fourth was Eketahun’s Hemi Braddick, backing-up from his maiden Open win, at Gisborne, a week earlier.

Smith doesn’t expect to be doing many more competitions before Christmas, but will step into top gear in the New Year, recognising he still has to do the miles to be ready for the Golden Shears in Masterton in March and the New Zealand Shears in April.

The Golden Shears winner will be an automatic selection for the Wools of New Zealand Shearing Sports New Zealand team for the 2023 Golden Shears World Shearing and Woolhandling Championships at the Royal Highland Show in Scotland on June 22-25, as will be the winner at Te Kuiti.

If one shearer wins both titles, as Smith has one the last six times he has tried, the teammate will be the New Zealand Shears runner-up.

Gisborne woolhandler Maryanne Baty, a World teams champion in 2017, returned to the scene of her first Open competition win to score a second Great Raihania Shears Open woolhandling title.

With fellow Gisborne woolhandler and World title teammate Joel Henare dominating Open finals in recent years, with 126 wins including three of the four earlier finals this season, Baty had had just three previous Open victories, at Hastings in 2015, at Dannevirke just before the World championships success in 2017, and at her home Poverty Bay show later that year.

She’d missed a deadline to enter a selection series to find a team for next year’s World championships,

Series leader Monica Potae, of Kennedy Bay, Coromandel, was runner-up in Friday’s final, former national No 1-ranked Senior and Napier-based Jasmin Tipoki, from Martinborough was third, with Chelsea Collier, of Hamilton, fourth.

Multiple former Junior and Intermediate final winner Adam Gordon, of Masterton won the Senior shearing final, the Intermediate final was won by Gisborne shearer Richmond Ngarangione, beating Tokomaru Bay shearer Dylan Young, who had won when both were in the Gisborne final, and the Junior final was a first-up triumph for Cheyden Winiana, of Nuhaka.

Flaxmere mum Nohokainga Maraki won the Senior woolhandling final, in only her second competition, and the Junior final was won by Te Whetu Brown, from Wairoa.

Despite cold conditions and the event being on a Friday, a public holiday in Hawke’s Bay but a normal work day everywhere else, entries for the Great Raihania Shears were the greatest in at least six years, with 119 competitors.

The 67 shearers included 19 in each of the Open and Senior grades and six in the Novice event won by Shania Mackey, of Hastings, and the 52 woolhandlers included 30 in the Open grade.

Results from the Great Raihania Shears at the Hawke’s Bay A and P Show on October 21, 2021:

Shearing

Open final (20 sheep):Rowland Smith (Maraekakaho) 17min 6sec, 58.25pts, 1; Jack Fagan (Te Kuiti) 16min 24sec, 58.6pts, 2; Gavin Mutch (Scotland/Dannevirke) 17min 13sec, 60.8pts, 3; Hemi Braddick (Eketahuna) 17min 15sec, 61.4pts, 4.

Senior final (5 sheep): Adam Gordon (Masterton) 6min 40sec, 28.4pts, 1; Paul Swann (Wairoa) 6min 56sec, 29pts, 2; Te Ua Wilcox (Gisborne) 6min 44sec, 33.6pts, 3; Joseph Gordon (Masterton) 7min 25sec, 35.45pts, 4.

Intermediate final (4 sheep): Richmond Ngarangione (Gisborne) 7min 9sec, 32.45pts, 1; Dylan Young (Tokomaru Bay) 6min 33sec, 33.15pts, 2; Hautapu Mihaere (Te Awamutu) 7min 12sec, 33.35pts, 3; Bruce Grace (Napier) 6min 50sec, 36.75pts, 4.

Junior final (3 sheep): Cheyden Winiana (Nuhaka) 6min 20sec, 39pts, 1; Ryka Swann (Wairoa) 6min 54sec, 40.367pts, 2; Jake Golfdsbury (-) 6min 49sec, 44.783pts, 3; Jack Procter (-) 5min 41sec, 51.383pts, 4.

Novice (1 sheep): Shania Mackey (Hastings) 4min 45sec, 49.25pts, 1; Te Ariki Te Hau (-) 3min 51sec, 50.55pts, 2; Ashlin Swann (Wairoa) 8min 48sec, 66.4pts, 3; Shiane Te Hau (-) 5min 15sec, 79.75pts, 4.

Woolhandling

Open final: Maryanne Baty (Gisborne) 330.2pts, 1; Monica Potae (Kennedy Bay) 367.6pts, 2; Jasmine Tipoki (Martinborough/Napier) 397pts, 3; Chelsea Collier (Hamilton) 552.8pts, 4.

Senior final: Nohokainga Maraki (Flaxmere) 226.2pts, 1; Tira Ngarangione (Gisborne) 270pts, 2; Vinniye Phillips (Taumarunui) 277pts, 3; Rochelle Ashford (-) 341pts, 4.

Junior final: Te Whetu Brown (Wairoa/Napier) 165pts, 1; Waiari Puna (Napier) 169.4pts, 2; Tatiana Keefe (-) 183pts, 3; Jodiesha Kirkpatrick (Gisborne) 193.8pts, 4.

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