Digger Balme in classic pose on the shearing competition board. Photo / Shearing Sports New Zealand
Digger Balme in classic pose on the shearing competition board. Photo / Shearing Sports New Zealand
Age ain’t doing nothing to slow down veteran competition shearer, commentator and sometimes judge Digger Balme.
Balme, who quietly turned 60 on October 30, claimed his first win of a new decade, in a 20-sheep open final at the Rotorua A and P Show Geyserland Agrodome Shears on Saturday.
In his 39th year of open-class shearing, the King Country gun averaged a tick over a minute a sheep, shearing the 20 in 20min 13.2sec, beaten off the board only by Southland shearer Josef Winders, who took 20m 10.7s, but who ultimately had to settle for fifth place.
With the best pen-quality points, Balme finished with a comfortable margin of 4.695pts clear of runner-up James Ruki, of Piopio, who had conceded just 0.9pts quality points on the board but had finished in 21m 22.1s. Tui Pene, from Waipawa, was third.
Balme remains a regular at most North Island shows on the Shearing Sports New Zealand calendar, competing, “on the mic”, indulging in the enjoyment of the shows derived by son Kyle, who has autism spectrum, and following the fortunes of younger members of his crew, such as Callum Bosley, from England, who came third in Saturday’s intermediate final.
On Saturday, Balme, one of New Zealand’s top shearers throughout his four decades in the top class, despite competing in the shadow of Sir David Fagan, who won 642 finals in an open-class career spanning 33 years, was claiming just his fourth win in the last 10 years, in which he has now shorn 32 finals.
His next-most-recent win was at Te Puke two years ago, and he had two wins in 2016, at Aria and Te Puke.
In a break from Sunday-shearing on his father’s small block south of Te Kuiti, Balme said he still enjoyed the shows and that in a good season with a small crew – mainly on his trailer around Waikato and King Country – he went to Rotorua feeling “in the groove”, and found himself having to relinquish the microphone more than once as he made his way through the heats, to the semifinals, to the final.
There was a tinge of disappointment, with Balme concerned by the light entry numbers and the amount of shearers not at the show, at a time when the competitions need supporting.
Meanwhile, Tararua district shearer Laura Bradley inched to the brink of becoming the first woman to reach the competition-based criteria for promotion to open class when she won the senior final, in the latest of a series of close contests with Hawke’s Bay shearer Bruce Grace.
Digger Balme (left) after winning the Geyserland Agrodome Shears open shearing final on Saturday, aged 60, pictured with son Kyle and open woolhandling winner Keryn Herbert.
It was her eighth senior win; taking her to 19 grading points, two shy of the 21 that would see her promoted to open-class next season.
While Grace was 35 seconds clear in shearing the 12 sheep in 13min 45.3s, Bradley had the better quality and won by 0.765pts.
Wairoa shearer Ryka Swann had his first intermediate win, beating Irish runner-up Paddy Dunne by 0.24pts, and the junior final provided a third win this season for Jodiesha Kirkpatrick, of Gisborne.
When not competing, one of Digger Balme's favourite roles is helping others break shearing records.
Keryn Herbert, of Te Kuiti, won the Rotorua open woolhandling title for the sixth time in 12 years, and the 59th open win of her career, beating Taiwha Nelson, of Alexandra, and Ta Potae, from Kenedy Bay in the final.
Moerangi Thwaites, of Rotorua, won the senior woolhandling title, and Paige Marshall, of Kihikihi the junior final.
Geyserland Agrodome Shears at the Rotorua A and P Show results
Ngongotaha, Saturday, December 7, 2024
Shearing
Open final (20 sheep): Digger Balme (Otorohanga) 20m 13.2s, 68.26pts, 1; James Ruki (Te Kuiti) 21m 22.1s, 72.955pts, 2; Tui Pene (Waipawa) 21m 2.4s, 75.82pts, 3; Lionel Taumata (Taumarunui/Gore) 21m 59.3s, 76.115pts, 4; Josef Winders (Southland) 20m 10.7s, 80.135pts, 5.
