Mataura shearer Brett Roberts, seen here at the Canterbury Shears in 2016. Photo / Shearing Sport New Zealand
Mataura shearer Brett Roberts, seen here at the Canterbury Shears in 2016. Photo / Shearing Sport New Zealand
Southland shearer Brett Roberts was truly the flying Kiwi as he returned to the winner’s circle in winning the open shearing final at the Ashburton A&P Show on Saturday.
First to finish, shearing the 20 sheep in 19min and 16sec, Roberts was barely off the stage at the end when he was on his way to Christchurch and flying to Australia for six weeks’ work.
Roberts had previously won the final in 2019 and 2021. He was also runner-up to fellow South Island shearer Nathan Stratford last season, which he ended with just one win, despite reaching 12 finals. He had won at Mayfield in March.
Crossing the Tasman Roberts will miss such events as this weekend’s Get to the Point Pleasant Point Shears and the November 14-15 Canterbury Shears New Zealand Corriedale Shearing and Woolhandling Championships in Christchurch.
On Saturday he kept out runner-up Ōamaru shearer Justin Meikle by just four seconds in a final of 20 sheep each.
Meikle, who won the Ashburton intermediate final in 1993 and open final in 2003, won at Ellesmere a fortnight ago on a comeback trail sparked by following teenage son Tye Meikle who was starting out in the competition scene.
As he did at Ellesmere, Meikle watched his 16-year-old take the junior final, this time with a margin of more than 6 points, from Holly Crombie, from Te Anau.
A five-man international line-up in the blades shearing final at the Ashburton A&P Show. George Mudge (left), Phil Oldfield, Tim Hogg, Mike McConnell, and winner Tony Dobbs. Photo / Shearing Sports New Zealand
The senior final was won by Cheviot shearer Liam Norrie, who won the junior final at Ashburton in 2016, and the intermediate final went to Mataura shearer Caleb Brooking, beating first-time finalist Isaak Cleland, of Ōamaru.
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Tony Dobbs, of Fairlie, returned from the previous weekend’s transtasman blades shearing test-match win at Katanning, West Australia, to make it three-from-three in individual finals this season, after winning at the Waimate Spring Shears on October 12 and in the Katanning Shears open blades final.
Mike McConnell, of Christchurch, won the race over four sheep each but had to settle for second place, second transtasman test team member Tim Hogg, of Timaru, was third, Phil Oldfield, of Geraldine, was fourth, and fifth was veteran England representative George Mudge.
Dobbs, McConnell, Hogg and Mudge had all shorn in the Katanning Shears blades final.
The Ashburton show attracted 44 shearers, with 14 in the open class.
