Record entries for All-Nations at Gorey From Doug Laing, media officer, Shearing Sports New Zealand May 13, 2014 A stunning entry for the Golden Shears World championships supporting’ Ireland All-Nations competitions in the coastal town of Gorey next week has forced organisers to make some programme cuts to make sure all the scheduled events are held. The All-Nations events, which open the four-day shearing sports extravaganza being held on May 22-25, attracted 354 entries, thought to be easily a record for any shearing event in Ireland or the UK. “We (in Ireland) haven’t had anything like that in the past, we’ve never had half of that,” said host committee chairman George Graham. “It wasn’t anticipated at all, it became quite unmanageable, we would have required at least another day,” he said. “We couldn’t do that.” Changes include merging All-Nations and All-Ireland competition heats, and cutting sheep numbers by one per shearer per heat. There are no changes to the numbers in the six World Championship events. There was also a personal sacrifice with Mr Graham deciding, in the interests of cutting one heat to further tighten the programme, to pull-out of the All-Nations woolhandling, which would have been his preparation for representing Ireland in the World championships woolhandlingover the following days leading up to the 16th Golden Shears World Championships finals on the afternoon of May 25. Open-entry All-Nations heats in four shearing classes and one woolhandling class will open the shearing extravaganza on May 22, with the fields including most of the 102 selected by their countries for the World Championships events starting the following day. Juniors will shear just one sheep in each of their heats, intermediates will shear two, seniors three and Open-class entrants four. The numbers increase for semi-finals and finals. The climax of the first day will be the six-man All-Ireland Open shearing final over 15 sheep, and on the second day the All-Nations Open final of 20 sheep each. A star attraction in the All-Nations Open is New Zealand shearing icon David Fagan, who at 52 only just missed selection for a 10th World championships, but who will represent New Zealand in a series of test matches in the UK in July. He has won almost 630 finals in an Open-class career of over 32 years, with a record five individual and seven teams titles in the World Championships. Some of the World’s best emerging talent will be seen in the lower classes, including Alun Jones and Hefin Rowlands, who figured in Wales’ greatest hour in Southern Hemisphere competition when they won the Intermediate and Junior finals respectively at the Golden Shears International Championships at the home of the Golden Shears movement in Masterton, New Zealand, on March 1. Each stepping-up a class, Jones will have among his opposition New Zealand shearer and fellow Masterton finalist Catherine Mullooly, who recently became the first woman to top Shearing Sports New Zealand’s rankings in any grade since the annual classifications were first compiled in 1992.
Posted on: Tue, 13 May 2014 09:05:47 +0000
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