Shearing: Eight weeks of A&P Show competitions start in the North

The unique setting of the Whangārei A&P Show shearing competition. Photo / SSNZ

The annual round of eight A&P show shearing competitions kicks off this Saturday with the Whangārei A&P Show.

The competition, which boasts shearing-only championships - revived in 2020 with the opening of an impressive new open-sided board - will be followed by the Kaikohe show on January 20.

After this will be the North Kaipara show at Paparoa on February 3, Northern Wairoa’s Arapohue Show on February 10, the North Kaipara show at Broadwood on February 17, Counties on February 18, the Kumeū Shears on March 9, and Warkworth on March 16.

The show this Saturday, with shearing starting at 10am, will be boosted by the Kaiwaka crew of top open shearer Toa Henderson, with at least eight expected to be competing, throwing out the challenge for all shearers in the north to support the competitions in the north.

Competition takes place in five grades from novice to open.

The numbers of shearers in Northland are no longer vast, but there is some strength, shown last year when Henderson and Dane Phillips, also of Kaiwaka, were first and second in the open final, and Jayden Mainland, of Wellsford, won the senior event.

Last summer Henderson won 11 open finals, as far afield as Kaikohe in the North and Balclutha in the South, while Mainland won three finals, and has won five in five seasons of senior shearing.

In January 2022, Henderson, Phillips, Mainland, senior shearer Tama Nahona and senior woolhandler Destiny Paikea were dominant at the Rotorua A&P Show with five ribbons, including two wins.

The tally included Nahona’s sixth senior win, the other five having all been in the smaller Northland shows.

But this year the crew have had to make a choice between competitions - the show close to home or the bigger competition of Rotorua’s Agrodome Shears, being held in December for the first time.

The Whangārei show is the first leg of the ANZ Northland Shearing Competition, which was first staged in 2018, establishing bragging rights between the shows.