Keeper bolts into Black Sticks | Bay of Plenty Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Bay of Plenty

KEEPING PACE: He arrived in town a few months ago and has rocketed into the Black Sticks men's hockey team. Martin Lang charts Hamish McGregor's meteoric rise to the top.

A move to broaden his career options beyond sport has paid off in a nicely ironic way for recent Bay of Plenty arrival Hamish McGregor.

Relocating here this year for polytech studies after spending most of his life in Australia, the 22-year-old goalkeeper has muscled his way into the Black Sticks line-up for the Four Nations tournament in England next month.

With first-string 'keeper Kyle Pontifex sitting out the quadrangular tourney - which pits New Zealand against Olympic champions Germany, Japan and Great Britain - McGregor has been drafted in as back-up for Steve Graham, making the goalkeeping role a Tauranga quinella.

A consistent pick for Australian national age-group sides, Christchurch-born McGregor turned his sights to tertiary studies in Tauranga after his playing ambitions took a knock last year.

Named in the initial Aussie under-21 squad for the 2009 junior World Cup, the long-time Tasmania resident found himself passed over when the team to travel to Malaysia and Singapore was named.

"I'd been in the Australian junior development programme since about 17, when I got noticed by Mark Hager [then Australian junior coach and a former international star]. Part of that was playing a World Cup qualifier series against New Zealand in 2008," McGregor explains.

"Last year we had a change of coaches. When I missed out on the World Cup I was quite disappointed and decided to concentrate on a career as well as hockey. I thought, 'What if I break my leg and can't play, where does that leave me'?

"I really like fishing, diving and surfing so I enrolled for the Diploma in Marine Studies (course) at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic. Tauranga's really good because with the ocean, beaches and city, you've got it all here.

"I want to go as far as I can in hockey but with the diploma I'll have something to fall back on."

Arriving in February, McGregor has since put his 1.91-metre frame to good use keeping goal for Mount Maunganui in the Midlands Intercity club league.

He's been in the country only four months but already he's caught the attention  of Black Sticks coach Shane McLeod, who last year  saw him in action for the Aussie juniors.

With the Black Sticks' heavy schedule taking them from the Four Nations event to the Champions Trophy in Germany (July 31-August 8) and then gearing up for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October, McLeod has been forced to keep a close eye on fresh potential.

"I saw Hamish play for the Mount a couple of times and asked him to come to Auckland for a run at a couple of [Black Sticks] training sessions," McLeod said.

"He's a very talented 'keeper - agile for a big guy - and he's got quick reflexes. That gives us a lot of raw material to build on."

While Pontifex will be back in goal for the Champions Trophy and Commonwealth campaigns, the Four Nations event - in Nottingham from July 11-18 - is a prime opportunity for both McGregor and Graham to step up and gain wider exposure, McLeod says.

Understudy in the Tasmanian state side to former World Cup goalie Ben Creese, McGregor got a grounding in life on this side of the ditch in 2007, playing a season with the Canterbury Cavaliers.

He admits to being a touch bemused about his rapid rise in New Zealand, now turning out for the country he left before he'd started kindergarten.

"It's great but a bit bizarre," he says. "My dad's pretty happy. My family's been in Australia 20 years but he's Kiwi through and through."