Golden Shears Champion Claims First UK Win

Golden Shears Champion Claims First UK Win In World Champs Build-Up

Golden Shears shearing champion Cam Ferguson has launched his preparations for next month’s World Championships in Wales by winning a major title in England.

Ferguson won the Royal Cornwall Open, his first victory since winning the 50th Golden Shears in Masterton in March, as a 26-year-old, in-form, first-time finalist conquering a host of veteran champions to claim the first of two machine-shearing places in the New Zealand team.

Finishing the home season with fourth in the New Zealand Championships in Te Kuiti as 48-year-old veteran and five-times World individual champion David Fagan secured the second berth, Ferguson shore in Italy for about six weeks before heading for the UK at the end of May.

In his first Northern Hemisphere competition he was fourth in a six-man Royal Bath and West Show final on June 4, being beaten by Northern Ireland World Championships hope Kieran McCullough, South Island-based Irishman Ivan Scott, and fellow New Zealand shearer Jason Win, from Ikamatua on the West Coast.

Two other New Zealanders featured in the five-man Cornwall final on Friday, with Far North shearer Matthew Smith third, and fifth place going to Paerata Abraham, from Dannevirke but based last summer in Masterton.

Ferguson was first off the board in the 14 sheep final, finishing in 10min 7sec, with Smith next nine seconds away.

Meanwhile, Fagan left his Te Kuiti home today (Sunday) headed for the UK to team-up with Ferguson and later the four others making up Shearing Sports New Zealand’s team for the 14th World Championships at the Royal Welsh Show on July 19-22.

The others are the woolhandlers, reigning champion and Taihape school teacher Sheree Alabaster and Te Kuiti-based team selection series winner Keryn Herbert, from Te Awamutu, and North Canterbury blade shearers Brian Thomson and Allen Gemmell.

Fagan won the World title in Masterton in 1988 and 1996, England in 1992, Ireland in 1998 and Scotland in 2003, and is keen to win the title in Wales, where he was beaten in the 1994 final by lifelong friend and fellow King Country veteran Alan McDonald.

He has also won six World teams titles, and is determined that New Zealand will successfully defend the titles won by Taranaki shearer Paul Avery and Hawke’s Bay’s John Kirkpatrick in Norway in 2008. Alabaster, already in England, is determined to retain the World double she won with former individual champion Joanne Kumeroa.

Fagan is also hoping to win his 600th open competition title in a 28-season open-class career dating back to 1982, and along with Ferguson expects to contest up to eight competitions before the Championships, starting with the Three Counties Open this week.

The pair will also shear in five test matches, two against Scotland and three against Wales.

Fagan said he had done some shearing since his New Zealand championships win on April 10, but the real work is ahead in the UK, where he has been a regular since first competing in the Northern Hemisphere in 1983, returning every year except 1985 and 1987.

Apart the competitions, the day-to-day practice is expected to be shearing on trailers, but the conditions don’t worry Fagan, who said: “Once you’re over there it’s on.You just get on with the job.”

The Cornwall show on Friday also brought triumph for another New Zealander in Oamaru shearer Ant Frew, who won the senior final, having also finish fourth in his class at the Royal Bath and West Show.

ENDS

© Scoop Media