A down year for Hawke's Bay shearing champs amid cancellations

Former Dannevirke shearer Paerata Abraham, now of Masterton, winning the national shearing circuit final in 2019. Photo / Supplied

After two decades producing a string of top open-class shearers and sometimes dominating the elite grade, Hawke's Bay's hopes of extracting some credit in a 2021-2022 season wrecked by coronavirus crisis cancellations has been left to two former Dannevirke guns.

Paerata Abraham and Ringakaha Paewai, now both long-domiciled in Masterton and Gore respectively, are among the favourites for the PGG Wrightson Vetmed National Shearing Circuits finals, which, with all other options exhausted, will be held on Saturday in a near-new woolshed at Armidale Merino Stud, near Gimmerburn, Central Otago.

The multi-breeds championship, sometimes regarded as the Ironman event of New Zealand shearing, is in its 50th year, having been established as the McSkimming Memorial Triple Crown in 1973.

Its finals have been shorn annually at the Golden Shears in Masterton ever since, until cancellation of the Golden Shears last year, when the final was held at the New Zealand Shears in Te Kuiti, and in this season, in which more than 40 of New Zealand 59 annual shearing sports events were cancelled.

With three of the qualifying rounds having been held in the South Island in October-November, all stops were pulled to make sure the two North Island rounds could be held at the Apiti and District Show last Saturday.

Just four North Island competitions were held during the season, from a schedule of 32. Among the cancellations were all eight from the Poverty Bay show in Gisborne to the Wairarapa show in Carterton,

Abraham, who has been a prolific batter on the competition scene, has won just two open finals, but they include the circuit final in 2019.

Hawke's-based shearers to have won the circuit were Dion King, who scored Hawke's Bay's first win in the circuit in 2006, when also he won the Golden Shears Open on the same night, four-times Golden Shears champion John Kirkpatrick (2013, 2018) and seven-times Golden Shears Open winner Rowland Smith (2017).

Southland dominates the final 12, this year with Paewai joined by TAB favourite, 2014 winner and 17-times finalist Nathan Stratford, defending champion Leon Samuels, Mataura's Ngati Pahauwera kid, Brett Roberts, and Lionel Taumata, of Gore.

The showdown at Armidale Merino Stud will be on merino wethers, half-bred merino-romney ewes, second-shear crossbred long wool and lambs, with four of each in the semifinals and five of each in the final

The qualifiers are: Nathan Stratford, Leon Samuels, Hugh De Lacy, Brett Roberts, Paerata Abraham, Aaron Haynes, Jack Fagan, David Gordon, Willy McSkimming, Matene Mason, Lionel Taumata, Ringakaha Paewai. Reserve: James Ruki.