Age no baa to shear champ Fagan

It was a case of old champs for new as shearing icon David Fagan won the open final at the Rangitikei Sports in Marton yesterday (february 7).

The 47-year-old five-times individual World champion's had to beat current champion Paul Avery, in what was Fagan's first win of the season - meaning the Te Kuiti shearer has now won at least one open competition title a season for 27 years in a row.

Avery, who had to wait 10 years after finishing second to Fagan in the 1998 World championships in Ireland before finally claiming the crown in Norway four months ago, was also beaten yesterday by Scotsman and fellow Taranaki farmer Gavin Mutch, and had to settle for third place

In another blast from a King Country-dominated past, three other Te Kuiti shearers filled the remaining spots in the six-man final, with best-job shearer Dean Ball finishing fourth overall, followed by Digger Balme, and Fagan's nephew, James.

Balme defied age and the heat to win the race, finishing 20 sheep in 16 minutes 36 seconds, with six seconds back to  Mutch and a further four to the eventual winner, who pulled back the margin with better quality points.

Ball, who paired with Fagan to win the 2003 World teams title in Scotland, also tasted victory over the weekend, winning the open final at the Aria Sports on Waitangi Day, when Avery nudged ahead of Mutch in the battle for second and third.

The events took place in the absence of Napier gun John Kirkpatrick, who made his third successful flying visit to the South Island this season to win at the Reefton Show. Competing mainly to meet a South Island Shearer of the Year final eligibility requirement, to contest at least six shows on the circuit, Kirkpatrick claimed his ninth win of the season, and the 99th of his career.

He heads back to the South Island later in the week, aiming to bring up his century with a successful defence of a title in the first of the traditional majors, the Otago championships in Balclutha.

Fagan, who last won the Marton itle six years ago, also reached the Aria final at the weekend, but was unsure if he would compete in Balclutha, where he won his first major open title in 1983.

He reckoned, with a laugh, he wasn't going to get "too excited" about his return to winning form, ominously just four weeks out from shearing's glamour event, Masterton's Golden Shears, which he won 15 times from 1986 to 2004, and where he last year won his ninth national all-breeds series final.

He will travel south on February 19 as a member of a three-man team for an inter-island test at the second of the majors, the Southern Shears in Gore.

Meanwhile, another Fagan was on the leaderboard at Marton, with James Fagan's wife, Lisa, winning the open woolhandling final, in which Taihape schoolteacher Sheree Alabaster her best result since winning the World woolhandling title in Norway and finished second, and teenaged New Zealand transtasman series team member Joel Henare, of Gisborne, third.

There was more King Country success in the senior shearing final in Marton, won by Mark Grainger, also of Te Kuiti, with Kirkpatrick's nephew, Ian Kirkpatrick, of Gisborne, finishing second.