Barrowcliffe said he, Fagan and Buick were a happy team after the test match win, after being beaten by Scotland at the Lochearnhead Shears on June 29 and heading into a three-test series against Wales.
“The boys shore well all day,” he said.
The 18-man Open championship semi-final was “very tight” and, as manager, he was “over the moon to get both David and Jack into the final. Jack led from the front and showed real grit and determination to keep the pressure on,” he said.
In the test it was Buick that applied the time pressure with Fagan never far behind, although it was Berry who claimed overall individual honours.
The team scored its second double on a six-match tour of the UK.
The latest successes came at the French championships in the medieval southwest France town of Martel where Buick and Fagan beat the French team of brothers Gilles and Pierre Renton in a rare New Zealand test on the continent.
Fagan had also won the French final in 2016 and 2017, following father Sir David Fagan’s exit from 33 years in Open-class shearing with victory in the event in 2015.
The wins came just two days after a similar double in England.
The Kiwis have now won two of the three tests on the annual northern tour that culminates with a three-test series against Wales, at the Cothi Shears, the Royal Welsh Show on July 24, and the Corwen Shears on July 27.
Both the test and the Open final, of 20 sheep each, were exciting spectacles as Fagan and Pierre Grancher, from Creuse in Central France, battled for the time honours, finishing almost blow for blow.
Grancher was first-off in the test, winning the race by four seconds from Fagan and shearing the 20 sheep in 14m 6s, but the King Country shearer had the best quality points and claimed individual honours by 6.6 of the Kiwis’ winning margin of 8.65pts.
It was much closer in the Open final, in which Fagan again posted the better quality points but was also first-off, his 13m 24s pipping Grancher by just two seconds, but claiming the overall win by just 1.2pts.
Barrowcliffe said the events and Fagan’s experience on the “tricky little sheep” paid dividends. The sheep were the French breed caussenade du lot,
A regular in France and a fluent speaker of French, Fagan has now won 22 Open finals, along with 63 speedshear victories.
Results:
International (20 sheep): New Zealand (Jack Fagan 14m 10s, 52.25pts; David Buick 14m 26s, 61.95pts) 114.2pts beat France (Pierre Grancher 14m 6s, 58.65pts; Gilles Grancher 15m 32s, 64.2ptspts) 122.85pts.
French all-nations Open final (20 sheep): Jack Fagan (Te Kuiti NZ) 13m 24s, 49pts, 1; Pierre Grancher (Creuse, Central France) 13m 26s, 50.2pts, 2; Jeremy Leygonie Martel, Southwest France) 14m 12s, 53.3pts, 3; Gilles Grancher (Alpes, Southeast France) 14m 41s, 53.35pts, 4.
