That Man Fagan Wins And Faces The Dream

That Man Fagan Wins And Faces The Dream

Veteran shearing champion David Fagan has landed possibly the ultimate long-service award but possibly also one of his greatest challenges after winning his 17th New Zealand Championships open title in home-town Te Kuiti on Saturday night.

With the 48-year-old’s victory came a place in the New Zealand team for the 14th World Championships in three months’ time, where he will be aiming to win the individual title for a sixth time

With teammate, new Golden Shears champion and rookie international Cam Ferguson, 26, of Waipawa, he will also be targeting a seventh World teams title.

But he also carries the hopes of a sport aghast that he has never been recognised at national Sportsperson of the Year level, yet confident that if he wins another title at the Royal Welsh Show on July 22 he’ll be a shoo-in for a Halberg Award when judges ponder their options at the end of the year.

For the first time, after career open-class win No 598 dating back to his first in February 1983, Fagan conceded publicly on Saturday night it had been his goal all season.

“You’ve got to be careful what you dream for,” he said, as prizes worth over $20,000 became secondary to black-singlet target. “But it was a goal of mine all season. All of us have been thinking about it, whether we could get in the team, and I can’t quite believe it.”

“I’m probably past my prime…but I’ll take it,” he said, but would have found few to agree, for he had, after all, been first of the six finalists to finish the 20 sheep, stopping the clock at 14min 52.7sec, four seconds ahead of second-man-off Ferguson.

But, with just 23.25seconds covering the first four, there was still room for what could have would have been the biggest upset in Open-class shearing in many years.

Fifth-man off and Far North youngster Rowland Smith, less than half Fagan’s age and a shock qualifier for the final, came back from almost 50 seconds down to be runner-up, his superior quality getting him to just 0.27pts from victory.

From Ruawai, but based for most of the season in Hawke’s Bay where early-season injury stopped him from joining brother Matt in a World eight-hour ewe-shearing record in January, the 23-year-old Smith did not reach a final on the 60-show Shearing Sports New Zealand calendar till mid-February, when he won the Counties title at Pukekohe.

It was his only win of the season, while, including Fagan’s win and victory in the North Island Shearer of the Year final 24 hours earlier, the rest of the finalists ended the season with a combined total of 28 wins. That was without the top-ranked shearer, Napier gun John Kirkpatrick, who was a shock semi-final elimination on Saturday, having shorn in 26 finals during the season, winning eight.

Fagan had won more than 40 finals in a quarter-century of Te Kuiti’s three feature events but hadn’t had a victory on the stage since a New Zealand Shears Circuit win in 2007

He gave the first indication of a Wales World championships swansong when he won a 16th Golden Shears open title last year, five years after his next-most-recent win in Masterton’s big event. In the happy hunting ground of the UK last year, he won at Glenarm Castle and the Great Yorkshire Show on successive day, and back in New Zealand won the Great Raihania Shears title at the Hawke’s Bay Show in October, the New Zealand Corriedale title in Christchurch in November, and the Aria Sports and Taumarunui Jamboree titles in February.

He was third to Ferguson at the Golden Shears and went on to complete 23 finals for the season, and finish second to Kirkpatrick in the rankings.

Shearing Sports New Zealand chairman John Fagan doesn’t believe public expectation will place any pressure on his younger brother, and said: “I think he’s been quietly working away on this all season, particularly his fitness.”

“It was an amazing achievement for David, and amazing feat for our sport, and also a very proud moment for our family,” he said.

“What I can say about David is this special thing, that he’s got his head-space right, which is a very important thing in all sports. He’s very happy at home, it’s the whole package.”

“And he’s also seen guys be top qualifiers in semi-finals, known them to go to pieces, and know they’ll never win it. I think he’ll put (the win in) Te Kuiti behind him now, and get on with it.”

Taranaki shearer and reigning World Champion Paul Avery finished third, and misses the chance to defend the title, his ousting meaning the black-singlets team in Wales will have only one of the six-strong machine shearing, blade shearing and woolhandling team which claimed four of the six titles in Norway in 2008.

As well as Fagan and Ferguson, New Zealand will be represented by Canterbury blades-shearers Brian Thompson and Alan Gemmell, and woolhandlers Keryn Herbert and reigning champion Sheree Alabaster, of Taihape.

New Zealand got a big leg-up towards the championships when Kirkpatrick and Fagan’s nephew, James, beat Welshman Gareth Daniel and Gareth Evans on a Saturday night, to complete a whitewash of four tests, and one unofficial match, on the Wales teams’ tour preparing for a big performance in hosting the World Championships.

Gisborne teenager Joel Henare became the youngest ever New Zealand Championships or Golden Shears open woolhandling champion when he turned the tables on 39-year-old Golden Shears winner Joanne Kumeroa, of Whanganui.

Henare was the only rankings-winner to claim a New Zealand Championships title.

The senior shearing title was won by Feilding shearer Davy Garland, with rankings winner Aaron Haynes, also of Feilding, finishing second, and Waipukurau teenage and Modern Apprenticeship success-story Tysson Hema won the intermediate final by a narrow margin from intermediate rankings winner Wi Poutu Ngarangione, of Gisborne.

Another Manawatu teenager, Kimbolton’s Sarah Goss, became the first female to win a New Zealand Championships shearing title, when she won the Junior final, in which the Junior rankings winner, Jack Fagan, son of David, was third. Goss later also won the Junior Encouragement Circuit Final.

The Senior woolhandling final was won by Natalie Collier, of Opotiki, and the junior title by Pahiatua handler Kim Sowry, who also won her Encouragement Circuit final.

The top ranked senior woolhandler for the season was Amy Ruki, of Invercargill, and the top-ranked Junior was Juliette Lyon, of Alexandra.

ENDS

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