England shearer Nick Greaves, a contender for World Championships honours in Masterton on March 4-7, on the back of 10 seasons learning the ropes in Hawke's Bay. Photo / Doug Laing
England shearer Nick Greaves, a contender for World Championships honours in Masterton on March 4-7, on the back of 10 seasons learning the ropes in Hawke's Bay. Photo / Doug Laing
Almost all the top hopes for the glamour machine shearing titles at the Golden Shears World Shearing and Woolhandling championships in Masterton March 4-7 have been working and training in Hawke’s Bay.
They include defending champion Gwion Evans, from Wales, and Hawke’s Bay-based former champions Rowland Smith (New Zealand) andGavin Mutch (Scotland).
Other top hopes working in the area include England teammates Matthew Smith (Rowland Smith’s brother) and Nick Greaves, Mutch’s former teams champion teammate, Hamish Mitchell, and Ireland representative Denis O’Sullivan, with wife Katie, a Scotland woolhandling representative.
There are also a range of competitors from France, Norway, The Netherlands, Falkland Islands and Isle of Man, among representatives of 26 countries with teams at the championships.
Mutch, from Huntly, Aberdeenshire, was based in Taranaki when he won the 2012 title in Masterton, but now farms near Dannevirke.
The most prominent contenders not working in Hawke’s Bay are New Zealand team member, likely favourite and Northland gun Toa Henderson, and second Welsh shearer Llyr Jones, based in Masterton.
It's all about the gear for shearer Nick Greaves as he prepares in Hawke's Bay for his first World championships, representing England at the Golden Shears in Masterton on March 4-7. Also pictured is workmate and Welsh international Gethin Lewis, who just missed selection to represent his country at the championships. Photo / Doug Laing
Shearing last week at Ahuriri Station, near Hawke’s Bay Airport, new England international and 31-year-old father-of-two Greaves is in his 10th season Downunder for Napier contractor Brendan Mahony.
Greaves in 2020 sheared 763 lambs in a gruelling nine-hour day in the pumice country northwest of Napier, which was particularly punishing on the gear as he went through 42 combs and 200 cutters.
The blowout was worth it, for in 2024 in England he shore 764 to break a World eight-hour record set by King Country shearer Jack Fagan in New Zealand two years earlier.
At the time he told British media he said many people had inspired him, but singled-out Mahony Shearing ganger Pete Chilcott, for giving him the confidence “when I needed it most” and got him through that 2020 day at Tarawera Station.
In any other sport so close to a world championship, the closeness of the competitors might be seen as consorting with the enemy, but Greaves says: “We all help each other. Pete really knows his gear for the sheep over here and the blows around the sheep, something that’s completely different to UK sheep, with the gear and the footwork and blows.”
Among the numerous others over the years he remembered being helped by Rowland Smith, who he could now be challenging for a World title.
Last week, Greaves finished third in the Te Puke A&P Show Open final, and was lining up a string of competitions for the last 10 days before the championships, where the first goal is make the semi-final cut of 18.
“I arrived out here on January 8 knowing it would be a slow start to the show season for me,” he said. “I had to get fit again, but I train most days, and enjoy it.”
Joining Mutch as a second Tararua District competitor at the championships is Marika Braddick, of Eketahuna, who won her place in the New Zealand woolhandling team in a second-chance final in Marton, where Rowland Smith also cemented his place at a fourth World championships.
Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter based in Napier and has more than 50 years’ experience as a journalist. He grew up with the Golden Shears in Masterton.
