Atawhai Hadfield (2015-2018)

Atawhai Hadfield left Lindisfarne last year having already garnered a good crop of trophies for his shearing prowess and he has gone on to add even more prizes to his tally this year. He set himself the goals of reaching the finals in both the Golden Shears Championships in Masterton and the New Zealand Shearing Championships in Te Kuiti this year and he has achieved both goals, coming third and second respectively. He also won the Collier trophy for the top qualifier in the heats leading up to the championships in Te Kuiti. 

Perhaps Atawhai’s greatest achievement to date is the number one junior shearing ranking awarded to him by Shearing Sports NZ. In order to achieve this ranking, Atawhai had to complete 19 rounds of competition around the country from October last year to March this year. He achieved 10 first placings in these qualifying rounds and his position was never out of the top four. Atawhai also improved his personal best tally by shearing 306 lambs in eight hours at Mangaroa Station, Wairoa in January.

Atawhai comes from a strong heritage of farming and shearing in particular and won his first competition at the Wairoa A&P show at the age of 13. With expertise like his, it would be fair to expect that Atawhai is a professional shearer but he is currently a shepherd on Poututu Station, Gisborne and would like to acknowledge the assistance that he has received from his employers, Tom and Linda Savage who have given him time off to compete all around the country.