Black Sticks sisters have father to thank

The Harrison girls were spending too much time on the roadside so their parents, Steve and Zannah, made a fateful decision to enrol them at  the Tikipunga Hockey Club.
Now Charlotte, 20, and Samantha, 18, are members of the New Zealand women's hockey team who play India at Kelt Capital Hockey Stadium in Napier tomorrow night - the third test of the  series.
Samantha said: "We actually started playing on the side of our streets with our good friends and neighbours who were older than us. We borrowed a couple of their sticks and we loved it so much our parents had to drag us off the streets."
Charlotte, who will play her 80th test tomorrow, said the initial encouragement to play for the Sticks came from their father after the girls regularly made age-group sides.
"He kept nagging at us and said if we practised and put our minds to it we can do it but we were like, 'Oh whatever, Dad, go away'," Charlotte said.
But when Charlotte got her international call-up at 16 she changed her mind. "After that I sort of thought Dad does know what he's talking about."
With their blonde good looks, the question often asked of the sisters is do they see themselves as pin-up girls for the code, a la Mandy Smith from an earlier era?
A grinning Samantha, sporting a bruise on her right bicep, nodded in Charlotte's direction: "I guess we are girly girls and do that sort of stuff but I guess it's a little funny when the little girls come up and start talking to you."
What about the boys? After a chorus of laughter she added: "I guess, and the boys too get quite excited but it's also quite funny."
Charlotte said fans often sought photographs but the pair agreed it was more a media-driven image which they had taken in their stride.
"We're quite an attractive team and our whole team is getting more attention than we have in the past," she said.
And will their 17-year-old sister, Anita, follow in their footsteps? No, they say, skateboarding is her passion.