World champ Avery takes final shears showdown

World champ Avery takes final shears showdown

Media Release - April 14

World shearing champion Paul Avery finished the 2008-2009 season in winning style by taking the Northern Shears open title at the Royal Easter Show in Auyckland.

It was the 41-year-old Taranaki farmer's 10th win in 25 finals during Shearing Sports New Zealand's season which comprised 63 competitions throughout the country, and he did it by beating by beating Napier shearer Johnny Kirkpatrick, 38, who had won 17 finals since the two returned from the World Championships in Norway where they finished first and second in the individual final and won the teams event on October 5.

Kirkpatrick, who a week earlier won a second successive New Zealand open in Te Kuiti to gain some compensation for his shock failure to reach the Golden Shears final in Masterton last month, finished second in the weekend's final showdown. Of the 14 finals in which they met, Kirkpatrick won seven and Avery six, and the only time both were beaten in a final was in the PGG Wrightson National series final, won by Rakaia shearer Tony Coster at the Golden Shears.

Third at the weekend was Te Kuiti veteran and former Tuakau shearer Digger Balme, who a week earlier failed to make the top 24 for the New Zealand Open quarterfinals. Te Kuiti contractor Dean Ball, who won three finals during the season, was fourth, and fifth was David Fagan, the Te Kuiti icon who on March 7 won his 16th Golden Shears open, the second of his two wins during the season.

Kirkpatrick had already confirmed his place at the top of Shearing Sports New Zealand's open class rankings, featuring an all-conquering series of trips to the South Island where he won all seven competitions he entered, including the South Island Shear of the Year title. He had also headed the rankings last season, with 16 wins.

Kirkpatrick's nephew, 18-year-old Gisborne shearer Ian Kirkpatrick, restated his dominance of the senior competition season by adding the Northern Shears title to his Golden Shears and New Zealand Championships titles, and nine other wins which ranked him No 1 in his class.

Another Gisborne teenager, 17-year-old Joel Henare, retained his place as the top-ranked open class woolhandler, although he is yet to win either the Golden Shears or New Zealand open titles. There were no woolhandling events at the Easter Show.

ENDS

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