MONDAY PROFILE: Busy Black Sticks schedule jotted in Bridget Kight's diary

ANENDRA SINGH
A lot has been said and written about Charlotte Kight - but what do we know about her elder sister, Bridget?
When SportToday hit its photo archives in search of Bridget's image last week you could count the number of hits in one hand. Charlotte's prowess in netball and volleyball meant she was a country mile ahead of Bridget in the publicity stakes.
But Black Sticks representative Bridget Kight hastens to remind anyone who cares that while Charlotte made the New Zealand age-group volleyball side and under-21 netball team in October last year, she was the first one to represent New Zealand, as a hockey international.
"I'll never forget the look on Charlotte's face when I told the family at home that I was in the New Zealand squad," a grinning Bridget said during an interview at the Kelt Capital Hockey Stadium in Park Island, Napier, a fortnight ago during a week-long high-performance academy coaching clinic for youngsters from around the country.
Oh, and for the record, Bridget claims she has a centimetre advantage when comparing heights with her sister. That's the sort of healthy rivalry that has seen the Kight children of farmers Jenny and Ed prosper in the sporting arena.
Born in Akitio, at the border of Hawke's Bay and Wairarapa on the East Coast, outside Dannevirke, Bridget started playing netball when she was 12 because that was the only sport available to girls.
In 2000, the girls moved to Havelock North with their mother so they could attend Woodford House.
Bridget wanted to play Hawke's Bay representative netball but the school rules prohibited that.
"I wanted to play goal defence as a Bay rep so I opted for hockey out of spite," says the 22-year-old Canterbury University student.
However, Charlotte, 18, went with the flow.
Bridget, who is in the twilight phase of her double degree in law and science, will be admitted to the bar in August.
She is now doing her internship with Auckland law firm Russell McVeigh until next month before she starts with them full-time from July.
With the the 2008 Beijing Olympics looming, she hopes to complete her studies extramurally.
The Kights' eldest sister, Rebecca, 24, a netball defender, has already graduated with a chemical engineering degree from Canterbury University.
Bridget reckons they inherited their talents from their mother, who played for the Massey University netball team and their father, who was a Wanganui cricketer and rugby player. Incidentally, their maternal uncle, "Tiny" White, of Gisborne, is a former All Black.
Bridget, a specialist fullback who made the Black Sticks squad in the 2004-05 season, went through the New Zealand decile (under-18) teams before playing club and rep level hockey while studying in Christchurch. Her first season (2004-05) in the National Hockey league) saw her meteoric rise to the national stage.
Munching a bread roll and banana during her lunch break, Bridget's self-assessment of talent is like a short, sharp penalty corner hitting the top of the net.
"Natural talent only gets you so far and I don't have much natural talent at all. I have had to do a lot of hard work to catch up with everyone else."
So how does she rate against retired specialist fullback and skipper Suzie Muirhead? Seventy percent, perhaps?
"I'd love to claim I'm 70 percent of Suzie's skills. Suzie is quite an incredible player," she replies.
"I'm a specialist so I'm limited. I just want to be the best fullback."
It's not an easy challenge. She's up against the likes of the more experienced Lizzy Igasan, of North Harbour, Sheree Phillips, of Manawatu, Dutchwoman Clarrisa Eshuis, of Hamilton, Kate Mahon, of Midlands, a versatile Frances Kreft, of Auckland, Central's Emily Naylor, and Midlands' Di Weavers.
The trick, she believes, lies in her consistency and distribution skills built on the solid foundation of fitness.
By July this year Bridget hopes to hit a fitness of about level 13 on the beep test. To put that into perspective, their male counterparts peak at level 15. Muirhead and Weavers, she hastens to add, are the only female Black Sticks to have hit 15.
"I'm definitely not in the core group and not a secure member of the Sticks. We don't know who is in the team but I know I'm not indispensable and would definitely want to be in (with the six or seven indispensables)."
Whether she is will be known soon after the 36 trialists have been put through the hoops this Saturday when 25 will make the national squad and 11 are drafted into the development squad, where Bridget spent 18 months before a call-up to the main squad for the last six months of 2006.
Becoming a Black Stick means taking everything more seriously, even curbing one's desire for sweets.
"We're allowed them provided you can recover from them. They are not Nazis about the food we eat but we just have to be mindful."
She sings the praises of the Kelt Capital Hockey Academy, which "phenomenally" puts the Bay on the selectors' grid.
"For instance, if you're going to pit an Auckland or Canterbury player against one from, say, Wairarapa Bush, even though their skill levels may be the same, Auckland will come first because they can be rest assured there's been a good coaching background."
She doesn't rule out "pro bono" work as a lawyer to put something back in the Bay.
"There's a bit of sense of pride coming from somewhere small but it's not an obligation. It's because you want to."
The Black Sticks have a busy calendar that includes a five- match series of Australia in March/April, 10 days of non-world ranking tour in Azerbaijan and September's Olympic qualifying matches against Australia and New Zealand in Suva. Soon after, India arrive for a five-test series.
"I'd love to be part of all of them. You've got to plan for the worst-case scenario so I've pencilled them all in."
Sparc's recent decision to cut funding was a kick in the code's guts and led to the closure of the Wellington high-performance centre.
"It's such a cruel cycle. We don't perform so Sparc cuts our money but it becomes harder to perform without Sparc's money," says Bridget, bemoaning the loss of Pegs (performance enhancing grants) worth $6000 per player per year.
But she's a fighter and has gained individual sponsorship through specialist running company Brooks, via the website. "I was assertive. I knew I had to target a company that wasn't sponsoring hockey players."