Rowland Smith. Photo/Supplied
Hawke's Bay shearer Rowland Smith became New Zealand's seventh world individual machine shearing champion when he won a thrilling final on a dramatic final day of the 16th Golden Shears World Champion ships in Gorey, Ireland.
Smith, 27, follows original winner Roger Cox, 1980 winner Brian "Snow" Quinn, five-time champion David Fagan (1988, 1992, 1996, 1998, 2003), Alan McDonald (1994), 2008 winner Paul Avery, and Cam Ferguson, who won in 2010.
It was otherwise slim pickings for the strong New Zealand team, as an unprecedented five countries shared the six titles.
The Scotland team of Gavin Mutch and Hamish Mitchell ended New Zealand's run of three consecutive wins in the teams event, Smith and John Kirkpatrick pushed back to third by Wales' Gareth Daniel and Richard Jones.
Joel Henare and Ronnie Goss became the first Kiwi woolhandling pair not to win a title in the nine championships since woolhandling was introduced in 1996.
In the individual event, Hilary Bond became England's first world shearing or woolhandling champion, and the teams event was won by Wales' Meinir Evans and Aled Jones.
South Africa was the only country to win two events, Mayenseke Shweni beating teammate, defending champion and four-time winner Zweliwile (Elias) Hans in the blade-shearing final, the pair having also won their teams event.
Ronnie Goss was second in the individual woolhandling final, while the blade-shearing pair of Tony Dobbs and Brian Thomson were second in their teams final, after being third and fourth respectively in the individual final.
Kirkpatrick was fifth in the final won by Smith, and Henare was the only Kiwi not to reach an individual final, missing out by one place on being among the six who qualified for the woolhandling semifinals.
The site developed for the championships beside the Redmond brothers' Amber Springs Hotel was a quagmire before the four-day May 22-25 championships.
As the Sunday afternoon finals session was about to start, a loud cracking noise was heard coming from the upper reaches of the tent's centre tower.
The crowd was evacuated and a two-hour delay followed before a structural engineer declared it safe enough to to return.
A crowd of about 1200 packed the "Dome", but hundreds more waited frustrated outside, with some relief when the flaps on the tent were raised to enable some to at least watch on the screen above the board.
Dobbs, who had won the blades title 26 years earlier in Masterton, in 1988, and who had had been top qualifier in the first of the two rounds of heats, made the early pace in the blade-shearing final.
But Hans moved quickly in the middle of the race over seven-sheep, which he shore in 16min 24sec, Shweni was next off 57 seconds later while Dobbs finished in 17min 36sec.
Dobbs had the best job on the shearing board, but Shweni had easily the best points from the judges out the back in the pens, and coasted home with a margin over Hans of more than four-and-a-half points. Hans had top-qualified for the semifinals and final.
The race was much closer in the six-sheep teams final, with just 22 seconds separating South Africa, Australians John Dalla and Ken French, and New Zealand, but Mayenseke and Hans had also had the best quality and retained the title with 5.577-point winning margin.
Goss had just scraped into the woolhandling semifinals, she and Henare rallying after poor results in the first rounds.
She appeared to be well in charge in the final in which she was first to finish, beating Bond by half-a-minute, and having easily the better board score, but was hammered in table judging where Bond had 78 penalties, to the 129 assessed for the Kiwi.
It was a similar position in the teams final - fastest time, best board score and big deficit on the table.
The machine shearing started with defending champion Gavin Mutch living up to the tag of favourite. He was top qualifier from the heats and the semifinal, in which host-country favourite Ivan Scott was eliminated as next-man-in.
In a field of six, fellow Scot Hamish Mitchell made the pace over the 20 Suffolk-mule crosses, putting a sheep around Australian champion and 2000 and 2005 world champion Shannon Warnest before the halfway mark, which Mitchell reached in 6min 43sec.
At the end, which he reached in 15min 15.497sec, 40 seconds covered the first four, with Welsh hope Gareth Daniel next, followed by Mutch and Smith.
Kirkpatrick, in his third world individual final and still without the big prize, finished over a sheep behind Mutch.
Mutch had the best board points, but Smith had easily the best in the pen judging, as Mitchell's quality faded, and took the title by a comfortable 3.135 points from Mutch.
The Scots featured in the best contest when just 0.561pts separated the first four in the teams event. Finishing the 16 sheep in 13min 33sec, with the Kiwis next off in 13:50, the Scots did just enough to atone for a loss to New Zealand in the 2012 final in Masterton.