Shearing maestro David Fagan could become New Zealand's top multi-wools shearer for the 10th time by heading the qualifiers for the PGG Wrightson national competition, which will be finalised in Masterton this week.
The 12 qualifiers were named in Pahiatua on Sunday after the last of the five preliminary rounds, the
first of which was in October.
In a swing against the trends of modern open-class shearing competitions in this country, six are from the South Island and only five from the North, although the remaining qualifier, Scotsman Gavin Mutch, is actually based in the North Island.
The qualifiers will shear in the semifinals on Saturday morning with the top six contesting the final a few hours later, a short while before the Golden Shears open final.
Fagan, 49, made the top six of the Wrightson in 1984 - the year he qualified for the open final for the first time - and won the national title in 1986, 1988, 1992, 1995, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2008, completing the Wrightson and Golden Shears open final double on five occasions.
This year's qualifiers include three other former winners in Southland - veteran Darin Forde, Dion King, of Napier, and Rakaia's Tony Coster, the winner in the last two years.
Among the others is Waipawa shearer Cam Ferguson, who reached both the two big finals for the first time last year, winning the open and finishing third in the Wrightson.
To qualify for the Wrightson, shearers were awarded points on their placings in the heats of the compulsory first round, the New Zealand Merino championship in Alexandra, and also the New Zealand Spring Shears in Waimate, the national Corriedale championships at the Canterbury Show, the national lamb shearing championships in Raglan and Sunday's Pahiatua Shears, on second-shear sheep.
The semifinals in Masterton will see four merinos and four second-shear ewes shorn while the six finalists will shear three merinos, three half-breds, three long-wool sheep, three second-shear ewes and three lambs,
The fastest time for the 15 sheep in the current format is thought to have been the 16min 2.7sec recorded by Forde in 2002.
