Sports Shear Australia Nationals 2023 was held on the 21st and 22nd October at Jamestown SA. Nhill, Kaniva and district was well represented in the Victorian Team, which were selected at state finals back in July.
They headed over Thursday ready for a training day Friday and the welcome dinner. Saturday was the Jamestown Show and Sunday was the National title.
On Saturday 21st October at Jamestown, results saw in the shearing Josh Bone 5th for the open, Jack King 11th in the senior shear, Doltan Austin 1st in the Senior and Tom McPeake 10th in the novice.
The woolhandling board saw Kirsty Bone 2nd in the open and Sigourney Williams 2nd in the novice.
On Sunday the 22nd October, saw some fabulous results for the National title on the wool board. We had Sigourney Williams winning the National novice woolhandling and Kristy Woodhead 8th for novice.
Kirsty Bone 11th in the open Woolhandling commented, “My better performance was the Saturday unfortunately.”
Over on the shearing board Doltan Austin finished 4th for the senior, Tom McPeake 9th for the novice shearing, Jack King 9th for the intermediate and Josh Bone 3rd in the open Shearing, gaining him a place in the Australian Team to represent at New Zealand in March next year.
Kirsty Bone said, “The Victorian Team won the teams event “smoked it” by 19.95 points which is huge. The Victorian Team Event consists of the top 2 shearers and woolhandlers in the open which saw Josh and Kirsty getting to compete together. This was absolutely the best thing I’ve done yet, winning my first National title as a team with my brother; words can’t explain what this meant to me.”
Congratulations to all the locals who competed on the weekend, and we will watch Josh progress in 2024.
This article appeared in the Nhill Free Press & Kaniva Times, 1 November 2023.
