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.