KEY POINTS:
She's the smart, leggy Bond girl that you want on your side.
Bond, Stephanie Bond, is an athletic, quick-witted defender on the netball court who will go down in history as the last captain of the Auckland franchise the Diamonds, as the National Bank Cup enters its final
season.
Off-court she's also a force to be reckoned with, as a lawyer with one of New Zealand's premier law firms.
And when the transtasman league gets up and running next year, and a players' union is established, Bond wouldn't mind combining her two passions and becoming the players' legal representative.
So far, Bond has managed that great juggling act of career and sport. But at some stage this year, the 25-year-old will have to decide which to put first when the new semi-professional, 17-week competition comes into play.
"I will get to that point where I will have to choose which path I'll go down," Bond says. "Personally I wouldn't be able to do both.
"It's asking for quite a lot of commitment from players. The competition is definitely a step in the right direction, but I worry that young girls won't be able to study or get a career outside netball."
In the meantime, her focus is on the here and now, on leading the Diamonds in their final season.
In the 10-year history of New Zealand's franchise-based competition, the Auckland side has never finished better than fourth. Together, Bond and the Diamonds Australian coach Sue Hawkins intend to improve that with an intense physical and mental approach - stepping up training and setting up small leadership groups within the team.
Hawkins chose Bond as her captain this season because of her work commitment and the respect she garners from the mostly-young team.
"She's a very intelligent woman on and off the court, and I've never seen her give less than 110 per cent. She's a workhorse," Hawkins says. "She's a quiet achiever, which is really important in a team, and the girls respect her."
Since Hawkins returned to Auckland at the end of January, the team have trained up to five days a week, both on court and in the gym. A four-match tour to Melbourne two weeks ago, playing top Australian sides the Kestrels and the Phoenix, was deliberately intended to get the team to toughen up before their traditional opening game against the Flames this Saturday.
"We felt that transtasman rivalry spark up in the first quarter of the first game, so it was just what we needed," Bond says.
She enjoys working with Hawkins, a former Australian shooter who, she says, approaches things quite differently than New Zealand coaches.
"She has a lot of say in everything we do. At trainings, we are there to train - there's no sitting down for half an hour and talking through things first. She knows we have just two hours and that we have a life," Bond says.
That's a crucial acknowledgement for Stephanie Bond. Often she will finish training at 9pm, and then have to return to her city office with law firm Russell McVeagh to complete her work, in resource management law.
"Sue is really understanding about my job, so she's fine if I arrive 10 minutes late. My work understands that I have netball in my life too," she says.
The girl who grew up on a 280ha dairy farm in Ruawai, north of Auckland, and became a boarder at Diocesan School for Girls, admits she was a little timid when she reached Dunedin - to study for a double degree in law and arts - and began playing for the Otago Rebels.
"When I first started, I was a student, the quiet one in the team who didn't say a lot. But then you have to start standing up for yourself and now I probably argue too much!" she laughs.
"The Rebels have such a great culture - the young students banding together - and now this [Diamonds] team is starting to feel like that as well."
There is another link between the Rebels and today's Diamonds - the on-court relationship between Bond and Silver Fern defender Anna Scarlett.
They have played together for four seasons at the Rebels, before both moving to Auckland in 2005 and joining the Diamonds. The rangy defenders are almost the same height, play a similar style and, over six years, have developed an innate understanding of each other on court. It's even got to the point where they are even mistaken for each other.
"At parties, people say to me 'Hi Anna'. It's terrible," Bond jokes. "On court it's great - we know each other and challenge each other."
As far as international honours go, Bond has yet to emulate Scarlett and play for the Silver Ferns. She is in the New Zealand A squad, and like any elite netballer, has dreams of making that next step up, especially in the year of the world championships - to be played at her home venue, the Trusts Stadium in Waitakere.
"I would love to make the Ferns, but I think it will be a big hurdle to get there. There are a lot of great defence players out there - I should have been a shooter. But I'm not even thinking about it - my focus now is the Diamonds."
Like any good Bond, she believes Diamonds Are Forever, even if this is their swansong.
