Monica Potae (left) and Sue Turner were first and second respectively in the Agrodome Shears open woolhandling final at the Rotorua A&P Show on Saturday. Photo / SSNZ
Monica Potae (left) and Sue Turner were first and second respectively in the Agrodome Shears open woolhandling final at the Rotorua A&P Show on Saturday. Photo / SSNZ
Coromandel woolhandler Monica Potae’s patience and perseverance were rewarded when she won the open final at the Rotorua A&P Show’s Agrodome Shears on Saturday.
Even though Potae has been an open-class competitor for 21 years, it was only her third win.
Her first was at the Taihape A&P Show in 2017, and her second at Dannevirke last season, where she finished runner-up in the New Zealand Shears open final in Te Kūiti in April.
Despite Rotorua being the last competition before Christmas, there would be no relaxing, with Potae heading straight for Hunterville with a couple of days instructing for Elite Wool Industry Training, on the back of a similar course near Te Kūiti last week.
For Potae it’s almost like someone spreading the gospel — not only teaching the craft of daily life in the woolshed, but how the farmer’s wool yield and the New Zealand wool industry can benefit from the challenge of competitions nationwide.
“You’re never too old to follow your dreams,” she said.
There have been eight woolhandling competitions so far this season, and Potae has been at most, from Alexandra in the south, where the New Zealand Merino Championships final was won by her sister Tia Potae, to the season’s northernmost at Rotorua.
The eight shows to date, with a seven-week break until national long wool and lambs title events in Southland on January 19-20, have had seven winners, and Saturday’s was by far the closest.
Potae beat Aria woolhandler Sue Turner by just 0.7pts, an excruciatingly close margin in woolhandling.
Piopio-based Azuredee Paku was third in her third open final, and first-year open-class competitor Te Anna Phillips, of Taumarunui, was fourth in her first open final.
The open shearing final had a similar infusion of up-and-coming talent, although the more experienced Te Kūiti shearers, Jack Fagan and James Ruki, were first and second respectively.
Third place in the five-man showdown of 20 sheep each went to Naki Maraki, of Flaxmere, who was in his first open final, 10 years after being the first winner of the Hawke’s Bay show’s secondary schools competition.
Welsh shearer Philip Price, who had just won the open final previously, a year and a half ago at Bro Ddyfi in Wales, was fourth.
The senior shearing final was won by Gisborne shearer Te Ua Wilcox, his third win of the season, East Coast shepherd Dylan Young scored his fourth win of the season with victory in the intermediate final, and Napier shearer Kaivah Cooper continued his domination of North Island junior shearing this season with his sixth win.
The other winner was young King Country competitor Makayla Neil, who has been in six of the eight junior woolhandling finals throughout the country this season.
Naki Maraki was third in his first open shearing final, and also won the senior woolhandling final. Photo / SSNZ
She had also won at Waimate on October 6.
The Agrodome Shears attracted 42 entries in the four shearing grades, and 31 in the three woolhandling grades.
Results from the Agrodome Shears at the Rotorua A&P Show on Saturday, December 2:
