Hockey: 'Fed up' Senior calls time on Black Sticks

Experienced New Zealand women's forward Moira Senior has put her health first and retired from the sport.

Senior, the veteran of 107 test matches though still only 26, said she was fed up with being injured all the time. She has secured a teaching position at Heretaunga College in Upper Hutt.

She went to Palmerston North from New Plymouth seven years ago to study at the College of Education "and never left."

Her last game of hockey was for New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester last year when she pulled up after tearing a hamstring early in the the bronze-medal playoff against Australia.

"I didn't realise how much pain I was in until I had a chance to rest," she said. "I have had enough. I'm sick of being sore all the time."

Senior played most of last year injured and in April was close to quitting. But she kept going because the New Zealand Games team were desperate to have her in a squad short on experience.

"Now I can do other things and not revolve my whole life around hockey."

Her other injuries included ankles, lower legs and shin splints. She had a knee operation in 2001 and missed the Black Sticks' tour to Argentina in 1999 through injury.

Senior's highlights include playing at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, winning a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 and playing every match at the World Cup in Utrecht in the Netherlands later that year.

She first played top-level sport for New Zealand as a softballer aged 18. She stayed with softball for two years and played the World Series in Canada in 1994 before opting for hockey and making the New Zealand squad two years later.

At her peak she was a world-class front-runner and goal-scorer, and her speed meant she was a threat to any defence.

- NZPA