Kiwi shearers bounce back in UK

MEDIA RELEASE

On behalf of Shearing Sports New Zealand

July 10, 2011

Kiwi shearers bounce back in UK

New Zealand shearers have had major success in Britain overnight with a win over England in a test match and yet another victory for veteran David Fagan.

The triumphs came during the Lakeland Shears at Cockermouth, Cumbria, where the New Zealand team of Hawke’s Bay-based shearers Dion King and Rowland Smith bounced-back from defeats in the first three tests of a UK tour to beat the English team of Adam Berry and first-time international Chris Hird by a comfortable margin of eight-and-a-half points.

The Kiwis quickly mastered the herdwick breed of the 20-sheep contest, Smith beating King to the finish by just the pull of the cord, with a fastest time of 14min 9sec, nine seconds ahead of Berry, with Hird more than a sheep behind.

While Berry and Hird had the better of the judging on the shearing board, the Kiwis’ quality in the pens was “outstanding,” said team manager and South Otago farmer Bruce Walker. King and Smith incurred 8.05 penalty points in the pen judging, while the English blew-out to 15pts.

Fagan’s triumph in the Lakelands Open final, just three months short of his 50th birthday, was also a display of mastery, to the delight of another of the British audiences which have watched in awe of his achievements since he first plundered the UK competition scene 28 years ago, with four wins in 1983.

Most astoundingly he finished the 20-sheep final in 13min 37sec, more than 20 seconds ahead of the 24-year-old Smith, whom he ultimately beat by just 0.2pts when all points were counted. Welsh shearer Gareth Daniel was third, King was fourth and Berry fifth.

Fagan, from Te Kuiti and in the UK independently, had been the top qualifier from the 15 in the semi-finals, which also included Ian Kirkpatrick, of Gisborne, and Paerata Abraham, a Dannevirke shearer who recently moved with the family of girlfriend and fellow shearer Cushla Gordon from Masterton to Australia.

The victory showed Fagan to be in imposing form ahead of this week’s defence of the Open title at the Great Yorkshire Show, where he claimed his 600th open-final win 12 months ago.

Other displays of Kiwi might at Cockermouth came in an international relay, in which Kirkpatrick and Abraham finished second to Welshmen Rhys Jones and Matthew Evans, while Fagan’s son, Jack, was second in the senior final, a seven-sheep won by Jack Robinson, the young Irishman who shears in New Zealand with Smith for Hastings contractors WoolQual.

King and Smith, beaten in the previous tour tests by England, the UK and Scotland, face an England series decider at the Great Yorkshire Show, and then a series of four tests against Wales at Cothi on Friday, Lampter next Saturday, the Royal Welsh Show on July 21 and the tour-ender two days later at the Corwen Shears.

Results from major events involving New Zealanders at the Lakeland Shears in Cockermouth, Cumbria, on Saturday (UK time):

Test match (20 sheep): New Zealand 96pts (Dion King 14min 9sec, 48pts; Rowland Smith 14min 8sec, 48pts) beat England 104.5pts (Chris Hird 15min 9sec, 53.3pts; Adam Berry 14min 18sec, 51.2pts). The New Zealand-England test series is tied 1-1 with the decider at the Great Yorkshire Show on Wednesday.

Lakelands Shears Open final (20 sheep): David Fagan (Te Kuiti, NZ) 13min 37sec, 48.55pts, 1; Rowland Smith (Ruawai, NZ) 13min 59sec, 48.75pts, 2; Gareth Daniel (Wales) 13min 53sec, 49.35pts, 3; Dion King (Napier, NZ) 14min 2sec, 50.55pts, 4; Adam Berry (England) 14min 17sec, 52.2pts, 5.

Lakelands Shears Senior final (7 sheep): Jack Robisnson (Ireland) 6min 47sec, 27.92pts, 1; Jack Fagan (Te Kuiti, NZ) 6min 33sec, 28.65pts, 2; Ross Crang (England) 7min 23sec, 28.72pts, 3; Michael Salton (England) 7min 52sec, 32.74pts, 4; Ed Goodfellow (England) 7min 10sec, 35.79pts, 5.

International Relay (14 sheep): Wales (Rhys Jones, Mathew Evans) 10min 38sec, 37.76pts, 1; New Zealand (Ian Kirkpatrick, Paerata Abraham) 10min 53sec, 40.36pts, 2; Falkland Islands (Lee Molkenbuhr, Stefan Clark) 12min 29sec, 44.16pts, 3; Scotland (Una Cameron, Callum Shaw) 12min 49sec, 44.45pts, 4; England (Ashley Story, Andrew Percy) 12min 36sec, 44.66pts, 5.

ENDS

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