Boast to Coast as shear champs head south, and west

Media Release on behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand, 6 Februay 2009

One of New Zealand's more remote shearing competitions will have an unusual moment in the sun as World teams champions from two different countries compete at Reefton tomorrow (February 7).

The two are Napier shearer John Kirkpatrick, who in October won a World title in Norway with Shear Blacks teammate andTaranaki gun Paul Avery, and veteran Scotsman George Bayne<crrct>, who in 1996 featured in a major upset as he and fellow-countryman Tom Wilson beat hot-favourite Kiwis and home team David Fagan and Alan McDonald in a World final in Masterton.

Another surprise competitor in Westland's only inland town will be one of the World's few female open-class shearers, Una Cameron, also from Scotland and travelling with Bayne from a current based with Pahiatua contractor Motu Tua.

Kirkpatrick is making the trip in the morning, to complete a South Island Shearer of the Year requirement of six competitions to be eligible to contest the final in Gore in two weeks' time, to defend the title he won last year.

Despite having never shorn in Westland, he will be hot favourite to win on the one-day trip, having won three other finals in the South Island in just three attempts earlier in the season, among a season's haul of eight victories to date, and a career tally of 98 open-class wins. 

After returning home for a week's work in the sheds of Hawke's Bay, Kikpatrick will return to the South Island on Friday for the Otago Shears in Balclutha, the first event in a bid to repeat a cleansweep of six major titles he won in February and March last year, when he won the Otago title, a Southern Shears and Sosland Shearer of the Year double in Gore a week later, and the Golden Shears open in Masterton, and a New Zealand Open-North Island Shearer of the Year finals double in Te Kuiti in March.

Bayne and Cameron make the trip at the invitation of organising convenor Sam Win, while all three were in Norway watching the World championships.

Kirkpatrick will be one member of a New Zealand selection for a shearing match against an International selection as part of the Reefton show, on of 66 on the Shearing Sports New Zealand calendar. Others in the unofficial test will come from top competitors during the day, such as Bayne, Cameron and Win, and reigning Reefton champion Jason Win if he competes.

A further attraction will be a shearing and chopping match, a race between the Reefton A and P Show's fastest shearers and fastest axemen.

Kirkpatrick missed today's Aria Sports in the King Country because of a wedding in Napier, and his absence in the South Island means he will also miss tomorrow's Rangitikei Shearing Sports in Marton, which also feature a top-class woolhandling competition.