Shearing Sports NZ chairman Sir David Fagan (left), with Rathkeale College shearers Charlie Heard, Michael Buick, Sam Mathewson, and Sam Loder, woolhandler Liam Quirke, and 2014 World Champion Rowland Smith. Photo / NZ Rural Games
Shearing Sports NZ chairman Sir David Fagan (left), with Rathkeale College shearers Charlie Heard, Michael Buick, Sam Mathewson, and Sam Loder, woolhandler Liam Quirke, and 2014 World Champion Rowland Smith. Photo / NZ Rural Games
Wairarapa boys school Rathkeale College has won the inaugural New Zealand Rural Games Secondary Schools Shearing Championship in Palmerston North.
The team of five beat four other schools on Saturday in The Square Te Marae o Hine, in the heart of Palmerston North.
Feilding Agricultural High School was the runner-up, followed by New Plymouth, Napier and Palmerston North boys' high schools.
Each school had four shearers, shearing a sheep each in relay form, with two shearers on the board at a time - on the same stand that was being used for the invitation New Zealand Speed Shear Championship - bringing the seventh annual Rural Games to an end on Sunday.
The way for the winning team was led by 17-year-old Michael Buick, from Pongaroa, an already accomplished novice and now junior, shearing on the Shearing Sports New Zealand Circuit.
The others were shearers Sam Mathewson, of Martinborough, Sam Loder, of Carterton, and Charlie Heard, of Masterton, and woolhandler Liam Quirke, of Gladstone.
School prefect Buick is the son of New Zealand representative and multiple New Zealand lamb shearing titles winner David.
Buick was awarded top individual honours for best quality, by a judging team of four SSNZ officials including chairman and multiple World, Golden Shears and New Zealand titles winner Sir David Fagan.
Other judges were Russell Knight, of Apiri, Marcel Thwaites, of Feilding, and Ian Hopkirk, of Feilding.
Shearers in the competition had the benefit of guidance from former World Champions Sir David Fagan and Rowland Smith, the two most successful shearers in the 60 years of the Golden Shears open final, with 16 and seven wins respectively.
Buick said he and his teammates would all have competed at the Golden Shears on March 4-6, had they not been cancelled because of a Covid-19 Level 2 alert imposed just a few days earlier.
Michael Buick receives the quality award from Rowland Smith. Photo / NZ Rural Games
Rathkeale College, north of Masterton, recently made shearing one of the core sports of its curriculum, alongside others such as rugby and cricket.
Buick said about 10 pupils at the school had taken up shearing as a mainstream sport, led by school Head of Department for Agriculture and Agri-business Coadette Low, with support from principal Marin O'Grady.
"She's the one that takes us to all the competitions," said Buick, who within a few days in January did 140 lambs on his first full eight-hour day and then his personal best to date of 220.
As part of the agreement, the sport has to have at least two training sessions a week, proving to be a boon for Wairarapa lifestyle block owners who get to have their small numbers of sheep shorn as part of the project.
Buick said he still had other goals for the season, including the New Zealand lamb shearing championships at the Mackenzie A and P Show, where his father will defend the national open title, and the New Zealand Shears in Te Kuiti on April 8-10 – both events that were cancelled last season because of the Covid-19 lockdown.
