MEDIA RELEASE

On behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand

March 14, 10pm

Old champ for new

It was a case of old champ for new as World champion shearer Paul Avery turned the tables on new shearing golden boy Cam Ferguson in the first competition after Ferguson's triumph at the 50th Golden Shears.

A shock semi-final elimination at the Shears in Masterton on March 6, Taranaki-farmer and shearing veteran Avery bounced back quickly to win the Open final at the Kumeu Summer Shears near Auckland on Saturday.

But while most of the top guns were on board in the six-man final, including King Country icon David Fagan and three other Golden Shears finalists, new Golden Shears champion Ferguson was not. He had to watch from among the crowd after himself missing the cut, albeit by just a hundredth of a point.

Fagan was second and fellow Te Kuiti veteran Dean Ball third.Hawke's Bay shearers John Kikpatrick and Dion King were fourth and fifth, and sixth was Far North youngster Rowland Smith, who the previous weekend had bounced back from injury to beat Avery in a Golden Shears invitation event for the best of those who had missed-out on a place in Masterton's big final.

In the South Island on Saturday, there was also a reversal in fortunes for another Golden Shears victor as New Zealand representative Tony Coster had to settle for second to fellow Rakaia shearer Grant Smith in the Mayfield A and P Show Open final. A week earlier Coster won New Zealand's premier mixed-wools title, the PGG Wrightson National, for a second year in a row.

It was at Mayfield last year that Ferguson won only his second open title.

The weekend's competitions were far from the end of the season for the country's top shearers, who next week head for the Waimarino Shears at Raetihi or the Methven Lamb Shears, part of a series of weekly contests heading towards a showdown at the New Zealand championships at Te Kuiti where they will battle for then single black-singlet sport beside Ferguson in the glamour machine-shearing events at the 14th World championships in Wales in July.

ENDS