The Royal Show in Hastings this week will field one of the strongest fields of top shearers and woolhandlers ever seen in Hawke's Bay as they strive for the top places in a challenging 10-month World Championships team selection series.
The show, which starts tomorrow and features the annual Great Raihania Shears on Friday, is the last of six points rounds in a series which started at Lumsden, in Southland, in January.
On Friday six shearer and six woolhandlers will be decided to contest series finals at next month's Canterbury Show, when the winners and runners-up will be named to represent New Zealand at the World Championships in Invercargill on February 9-11.
Leading the charge are Hawke's Bay's reigning 2014 World champion shearer, Rowland Smith, and 2012 World woolhandling champion Joel Henare, of Gisborne, who lead their respective series' and who were in ominous form on Saturday in winning the open finals at the Poverty Bay show, the first show in the North Island in the new season.
Smith won his final by more than five points from runner-up and Gisborne shearer Tama Nia Nia, with Napier shearer John Kirkpatrick third in his build-up to represent New Zealand at the World Championships for a fourth time.