Coster’s swansong ends with a fourth
Multiple national all-breeds shearing champion Tony Coster of Rakaia had to settle for fourth at the Mackenzie A&P Show open shearing title at Fairlie.
Coster, in his competitive swansong, was hoping for his fourth consecutive win in the event on Easter Monday, but was beaten by Hawke’s Bay shearer Rowland Smith. Ringakaha Paewai of Gore took second place and Jack Fagan of Te Kuiti, son of multiple world champion Sir David Fagan, was fourth. Eli Cummings from Pleasant Point took fifth place.
Smith arrived in Fairlie on the back of 19 consecutive wins this year, including the New Zealand Open Championship.
Coster earned more that 70 open final wins during his career, mostly in Canterbury and most prolifically at Mayfield, with 11 wins. In 2014 he beat legendary shearer Sir David Fagan at Fairlie by seven points. ’’It wasn’t really David’s type of sheep,’’ Coster said.
Coster had won more times in the North Island than any other southern shearer. His first competition was at Methven in the late 1980s, but his first open win was the Mid Canterbury circuit final at Ashburton in 1993. It was one of 85 competitions throughout the country that year, compared with today’s calendar of just over 60 competitions.
He has regularly won the Canterbury all-breeds title, but his greatest successes have been in the North Island where he had five PGG Wrightson National Circuit final wins over five different sheep types. The only South Island shearers with more individual wins at the Golden Shears are Snow Quinn and Colin King
Coster, who runs a courier business, says he still shears about 25,000 sheep a year and while the Mackenzie A&P Show signalled the end of the serious part of his competition career he expects he will still shear occasionally at local shows. ‘‘The body starts to wear down a bit and you do have to do a bit extra if you are following the shows around.’’