From playing against most of his Black Stick team members, life has turned full-circle for Hamish McGregor since playing for the Australian men's under-21 hockey team.

Hamish, who grew up in Tauranga before shifting to Australia for a few years, was last month named as a reserve for the New Zealand Olympic Games team.

While seasoned core team members may be disappointed with a reserve role, goal-keeper Hamish was delighted to get a place on the bench, given the dominance of permanent goalie Kyle Pontifex.

'Honestly, I was surprised. I was pretty rapt to get named. It was going to be a huge ask to overtake Kyle – on his day he's one of the best players in the world.”

Hamish made his New Zealand debut at the Four Nations tournament in Nottingham in 2010, playing against Japan. Kyle's dominance of the goalkeeping position (147 Black Sticks caps) has kept Hamish on the sideline since.

The former Tauranga marine studies student has seen him training hard in Auckland since getting the call-up to join the 25-member Black Sticks squad in April. It is an opportunity he has poured everything into.

'I came up here with my own goal to train as hard as I can – to get fit, lose some weight and really give it my best shot.”

When SunLive spoke to Hamish, the team was completing a week of training to fix errors that emerged in its three-game loss against the Australians in June. They are now training in Belgium with the firm focus on medalling at the Olympics.

'Australia gave us a bit of a wakeup call – they are the best team in the world for a reason. We had a few lapses then bang, within 10 minutes they've got three goals in.”

Hamish is philosophical about possibly sitting out the games on the bench, saying he is happy to be there just as a specialist goalie back-up, with his lack of field experience ruling him out as a general reserve.

'To be honest, I reckon if I tried to play on the field I would get laughed at. I'm good at goalie and that's about it.”