WA shearer Damien Boyle has won the New Zealand Merino Open Championship at Alexandra after battling for more than 10 years to take the title.
Mr Boyle, who was top-qualifier for the semi-finals but last-man-in to the final, had spent years trying to pick-off New Zealand's top fine wool shearing prize, first reaching the final at Alexandra in 1998 and being runner-up at least twice, including last year.
Just a fortnight ago, he won the latest of a string of titles at the Smoke Free Perth Royal Show. The last Australian to win the title at Alexandra was Ian Wratten, Armidale, NSW, in 1991.
Boyle took the title with his back supported in a sling, upsetting the Kiwi guns to win the first title of the New Zealand shearing season.
Runner-up in the six-man final was veteran Kiwi fine wool shearing exponent, Rakaia shearer and 2000 and 2004 winner Grant Smith.
Hometown favourite, Charlie O'Neill, was third in the shearing final and defending champion Nathan Stratford, Invercargill, was fourth.
Shearing Sports New Zealand chairman and former shearing champion John Fagan said Mr Boyle's win was good for the sport.
It was also the first time he could recall an open-class final being won by a shearer using a supporting sling.
"He (Boyle) had been in a lot of events all day, and I think he was starting to feel the effects," Mr Fagan said.
"He had a marvellous shear. All day he had been qualifying on quality, but in the final he lifted his pace as well. He's the sort of guy if you don't beat on time, you're gone."
The logic of Boyle's self-preservation was shown in the times shearers spent bent over their Merinos - about two minutes a sheep compared with less than a minute a sheep in the smaller mainly crossbred sheep of other contests throughout the country.
Smith was first finished taking 23min 0.58sec, Boyle was fourth 54 seconds later, and Stratford was last off.
The championships are the only Merino event on this season's Shearing Sports New Zealand calendar of 60 shows, ending in late April.
The open shearing heats are a compulsory first round in the PGG Wrightson National, in which competitors accrue points at shows on five different wool-types, aiming to make the semi-finals and final to shear at the Golden Shears in Masterton in March.
Hometown girl Taiwha Nelson scored what she regarded as the biggest triumph of her career by winning the open woolhandling title at Alexandra. It was her third win in the event and her fifth consecutive Alexandra final since giving-up working in the woolsheds five years ago to raise a family.