The Country 30/09/25: Jack Fagan talks to Hamish McKay

This shearing gun is back from Europe and Australia, and is looking forward to the new shearing and woolhandling competition season kicking off in New Zealand.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Alrighty ho, I think we're going to be joined now
by Well, he's been sort of spent a lot of time.
He's been away most of the winter competing over there
in a Europe Jack Fagan, Good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Jack, Good afternoon, Hammers.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Are you Oh, I'm great mate yourself. You just got
back what you competed in Perth on the way home
as well.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, I'm actually just out on the farm. Dad and
I are out spraying and I landed back from Perth
yesterday after competing at the Perth Royal Show on Saturday
and managed to get third, which was a pretty big,
big moment for me on a big marino competition. So yeah,
I'm all the same.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, good to get a few of those Wrinkley's done.
They you know, what are they like? In Perth?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
They were probably some of the better ones will share,
to be honest, they were pretty pretty plain marinos down
on the South Island up in the Central Otago. We
can get a few gnarly ones later on in the
season if there's a bit of snow in that around,
but now the ones in Western Australia were generally pretty
good too.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Have they bred to be better? To share? Is that
something that's happened over the years with marinos.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
I'd say definitely in the last forty fifty years, they've
got a lot plainer, taking that a lot of the
wrinkle out of them, and the wall's probably got a
little bit stronger in places too. But there's still a
lot of traditional farmers that argue that with skin and wrinkle,
you're going to cut more wooll and it's the weight
where they're making their margin. So I mean, the average
farmer in WA at the moment's making forty to fifty

(01:25):
dollars a fleece, whereas the ones that are actually cutting
a lot of waller getting up around eighty ninety dollars
a fleece.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, yeah, okay, well that's interesting. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
So we've got and of course the regular ones down
on Alexander that's coming up. Was that this week?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, that's this week. We've got the Big Wall Handling
and Team's event on Friday and then the Senior and
Open on the Saturday. So that's our first competition of
the New Zealand Sharing Circuit.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Season, right and now culmination, we've got what we've got
World Champs coming up this year, is that right? Too
come out early next year.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yep, the five, six, seven, eight of March at the
Golden Shares and Mastered and so all the world teams
will be coming out straight after the new year, and
we'll get settled into a bit of work and some
competitions and it's going to be a pretty hard New
Zealand team to make it at the moment too.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, so how do we have Is it a two
person team in the World Champs.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yes, so arguably there'd be twenty top guys in the
country and only two sharers get to make the New
Zealand team. So we're doing a bit of a long
winded circuit. At the moment, Tor Henderson is way out
in front of the circuit, and then there'll be a
second sharer selected at another final in early February.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
So okay, So what do you have to do personally?
Where do you need to really shine out and show
your strength to make it?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
So I'm probably middle of the pack at the moment.
We've got another five competitions in our circuit, so practically
out of those five shows, I'm either going to have
to win a couple or at least get in the
finals and place well. Just to get some enough points
to make that big final in February.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, I mean at the end of the day too,
the Golden Sheres magnificent event, I mean, the pinnacle in
many respects. But it'd be quite a hard watch, wouldn't it,
just knowing the World Champs are at the same time. Still,
I guess it's only two of about twenty as you say,
who could be contenders? Yeah, yeah, no, Now what else

(03:19):
we got coming up? So where do we go? Where
do we go after Alexandra? It's just pretty much fall
on right through this right through the late spring summer,
right through.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, right through until early December. So after alex we
go to Waimatti for the New Zealand Spring Sharing Champs.
We've also got a Winter Comb title there, which is
another marino competition. It's great for us to get another
one under our belt. The all these are fair bit
stronger on marinos than kiwis traditionally, so the more we
can do the better. And then we head up to
Gisbon the Great Rahani Show on the Hawk's Bay one

(03:51):
or two Whypuck, then down to christ Church Stratford and
then Fine today, so fairbit up and down the country.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, fantastic. So okay, So now how much sort of
time do you get for day to day shit sharing?
I mean there's a fair bit of travel involved in
all that, isn't there.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, pretty much working when it's the main season, working
during the weekdays, and then the weekends get away on
a plane or either a big trip in the car
with some mates and it's just for the weekend competing.
But there's there's a lot of camaraderie with getting on
the road with your mates. And I actually starting to
have a bit more to do with our local rugby
club with a speech here, and I listened to all

(04:30):
the rugby boys talk about their travels and a few
parties and their camaraderie, and I thought, God, I've missed
out on all of this because I'm a sharer. And
then I flipped it and thought, actually, we're exactly the
same in the sharing industry, which is pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Do you know what? Jack as a boy, and this
is just before David was on the scene, but John
would Uncle John would have been on the scene there.
I'd pull up at these shows as a young kid
and I'd see Ivan Rosendidge coming in his big green
Falcon and then Samson Hammerhona to Fotta and another big
you know, and just and the camarade, you know how
they'd all go around and shake each other's hands. Furiocely

(05:04):
competitive on the board. But I reckon that camaraderie is
something that's been around and I'm pleased to hear that
it still is. Is that sort of you know, when
you're together at a big open show, you all you're
all sort of like you know, you know, the blood,
sweat and tears that goes into this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Absolutely. I mean pre final obviously things are going to
be pretty tense, and everyone likes to sit on their
own and just get in the zone and work out
what you got to do. But I mean post presentations,
when you want everyone's chilled out, having a bear. By god,
it can be fun and talk about laughs. I reckon,
We've got some of the funniest characters in the world
and the sharing industry, and even if you talk to

(05:39):
a few contractors, they'd probably say the same.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, I reckon. I mean, I've got some magic times.
I mean, and I was known as the slowest sharer
and apity. I just tendency to sort of think about
other things. Jack was probably my problem. But when I
think back to some of the laughs I used to
have with boy Man and U and Dennis McKenzie and
Marcus Kown and some of the guys are work with
fantastic days and long made that continue in the wallshed. Busy,

(06:04):
big season ahead for you. All the best Alexander this weekend,
Jack and qualifying for one of those two places, yeah,
I imagine old tour is going to be quite hard
to haul and very quickly though. European So I know
it's a little while ago now the World Champs and
everything was going on up there, But how was the
sort of your your European sojourn.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
We had a great tour up through England, Wales, Ireland,
Scotland and France. We managed to win three out of
the six tests. Obviously disappointed we couldn't get six from six,
but yet we're still still learning and getting getting stronger,
and yeah, I'm thoroughly looking forward to getting back next year.
It's a hell of a fun tour.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, excellent, Ay, Jack, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm going
to take it on my shoulders. I want to see
more sharing in more mainstream You can't get more mainstream
than than the country in terms of rural coverage and
getting it into the into the cities as well. And
every time my cousin Jamie lets me on the show,
I'll make sure I give she what as he does. Oh,

(07:01):
make sure we give sheer in a good pump, Jack Fagin,
thanks very much for joining us.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Dudey, thanks so much.