Rowland Smith.
Hot favourites Rowland Smith and Joel Henare kept their places at the top of New Zealand shearing sports retained their New Zealand Open shearing and woolhandling titles respectively in Te Kuiti last night.
Each completing a double successful defence of the Golden Shears and New Zealand titles, they had dominated the New Zealand season, Smith winning 24 finals, with an unbroken sequence of 17 in the last two months, and Henare 13, including regaining the title of World Woolhandling Champion in Invercargill in February.
Completing a cleansweep of the two major Open crossbred second-shear titles and the two major multi-breeds series', it was Smith's fifth New Zealand Open title, with previous wins in 2011, 2013, 2014 and last year.
It was a fourth NZ Open Woolhandling title for Henare, who's third successive win in the event followed his first in 2010, and a Junior title at the championships in 2005 when aged just 12 years old.
It was a particularly special three days in Te Kuiti for Smith who added the Open title to the New Zealand Shears Circuit title he won earlier in the night and the North Island Shearer of the Year title he won on Friday night, becoming the first to win all three at one championships since Te Kuiti legand David Fagan won all three in 2002.
Acclaimed a Master Shearer by national body Shearing Sports New Zealand last August, a rare disappointment was finishing just third in the New Zealand World Championships team selection trial in November, and missing out on a chance to retain the World title he won in Ireland in 2014.
Eventual World champion champion and three-time New Zealand Open champion John Kirkpatrick, who had also won the North Island title twice and the Circuit once, was runner-up in both the Open and North Island finals, meaning he had been placed second 11 times in Smith's winning sequence.
Kirkpatrick was also third in the Circuit final in which the runner-up was his World Champion teammate, Nathan Stratford, of Invercargill.
The Open final was a furious six-man affair over 20 second-shear sheep each, with Te Kuiti shearer Mark Grainger hitting halfway in front at 7min 44sec, almost 10 seconds clear of next man and 2015 winner Dion King, of Alfredton, who hit the lead on the 12th and eventually finished first in 15min 27.58sec, as all but 2012 World champion Gavin Mutch finished in under 16 minutes. King ultimately had to settle for fourth place overall.
Smith and Kirkpatrick are now expected to tour the UK as a New Zealand team in July, but the 30-year-old Smith has another assignment, an attempt on the World record of 605 strongwool ewes in eight hours on July 24 in Cornwall, England, where brother Matthew set the ultimate nine-hour record of 731 last July.
The Te Kuiti championships provided him rich pickings, including $5000 in cash across the three wins, and the Open final's trademark Can-Am Outlander 570 Pro Quad Bike, valued at over $15,000.
Henare completely dominated the woolhandling final winning by almost 40pts from runner-up and six-times winner Sheree Alabaster, of Taihape, while first time NZ Open finalist Eramiha Neho, of Dannevirke, was third.
Earlier in the night, Taranaki shearer Darren Alexander completed a Golden Shears and New Zealand Championships double when he won the Senior final by almost three points from season's Senior rankings No 1 Paraki Puna, of Napier, with third place going to Taumarunui shearer Conan Te Kene, who'd finished almost 40 seconds quicker than the eventual winner and runner-up in shearing the 12 second-shear sheep in 12min 41.15sec. Alexander had the best quality points in both shearing board and pen points.