Kiwi Young Guns Miss-Out On Shears Finale

The black singlet slipped quietly out of the limelight on the last day of the Royal Welsh Show as two of the supporting events to the World shearing and woolhandling championships were left to the locals.

Numerous young Kiwi hopes were eliminated during the Royal Welsh Show championships junior and intermediate qualifying rounds, notably Masterton sherarer Cushla Gordon who reached the junior semi-finals and Te Kuiti teenager Jack Fagan, the No 1 ranked junior in New Zealand last summer but who was eliminated in the intermediate heats yesterday.

There was still interest for New Zealand, with the two lower-class finals including several young UK shearers who had spent last summer working and competing in New Zealand.

Most successful was teenaged Irishman Brendon Graham who worked in Canterbury and won three competitions on the way to becoming the fifth ranked shearer in the New Zealand season, and who yesterday added to his successes with victory in the Royal Welsh junior final.

England-Wales border shearer Steve Rowberry and another teenaged Irishman, Jack Robinson, both of whom worked for Hastings contractors Brannigan Eastern and also made the top 20 junior rankings in New Zealand, were both in the Royal Welsh intermediate final. Robinson figured in the race for time honours with Welsh teenager John Thomas. While Robinson lost points on quality, Rowberry, the 2009 junior winner, claimed second placing with the event won by Welsh shearer Ifan Jones.

New Zealand had gone into the fourth and final day of the show with a possibility of a cleansweep of four Royal Welsh Show titles in addition to the three World Championship titles and four other top three placings won by the six-strong Shearing Sports New Zealand team more than 100 Kiwis were in Wales to support.

On Monday, David Fagan won the Royal Welsh Show All-Nations Open final for a 12th time, and Southland teenager Willie Hewitson, of Woodlands, won the senior title.

In the World Championships events in front of crowds constantly topping 4000 on Tuesday and Wednesday, New Zealand claimed three of the six titles, and four other top-three placings.

Waipawa shearer Cam Ferguson won the glamour event, the individual machine shearing final, just beating David Fagan, with whom he won the World teams title. Taihape schoolteacher Sheree Alabaster and Te Awamutu mum Keryn Herbert won the teams woolhandling title, Alabaster was second to Welsh hero Bronwen Tango in the individual final, and Canterbury blades shearers Brian Thomson, of West Melton, and Allen Gemmell, of Loburn, were third in their teams final, with Thomson also claiming an unexpected third in the individual final as two of the four more favoured southern African hopes faded in the last stage.

Fagan, the winner of 602 open-class finals around the World since first competing in the grade in late 1982, has now won seven World teams titles, in addition to the five individual titles he won between 1988 and 2003, but is not prepared to publicly say how close he is to finishing his top level com[etition career, while set to to turn 49 in October.

New Zealand has won the individual machines title 10 times, Ferguson being the sixth Kiwi victor. New Zealand has also won the teams final 11 times, one of the eighth individual blades finals, four of the seven individual woolhandling title, and all four woolhandling team finals.

The next World Championships will be held from February 29 to March 3, 2012, in Masterton, where the Golden Shears movenent was founded in 1961 and where three previous World Championships have been held, in 1980, 1988 and 1996.

The founding Golden Shears International Shearing Society's first female and non-Wairarapa president, Mavis Mullins, of Dannevirke, was in Wales to promote the event among the countries which took part, and hopes towns and shearing communities will "adopt" teams, particularly those with lesser resources, to help them spend a month or more in New Zealand preparing for the event.

ENDS