RISING Cairns hockey star Tiarna Gordon knows this will be the busiest year she has yet to encounter.

Gordon, who will tour Malaysia and China with the Australian schoolgirls’ team in July, is already well into the new season’s training program with the Cairns under-18 girls’ team preparing for next month’s state titles.

Year 12 studies will further encroach on her time, but Gordon has found time to be recognised for two highly-coveted sports bursaries.

Gordon will travel to Brisbane on February 17 to accept a Future State Great bursary from the Queensland School Sport Foundation and has also been notified of her
selection as a recipient of Peninsula School Sport’s Dave Andrews Memorial Bursary.

The Brothers club player said she would use the bursaries to help meet the costs of the national schoolgirls tour and shout herself a new hockey stick.

"The old one is starting to wear out," Gordon said, the battering it has copped the likely result of the treatment it receives from the young striker’s powerful shots at goal.

Gordon, who will be presented with her state sport bursary at a lunch at Allan Border Field, said the financial assistance felt like a reward for the effort she has put into hockey.

"It’s good to get something back to help me with hockey," she said.

"I’ve seen my hockey calendar and it’s looking pretty packed."

Gordon believes the schoolgirls tour will be the highlight of a big year in which she also hopes to perform strongly in Premier League competition for Cairns and enhance her game as a member of the Queensland under-21 women’s squad.

"I want to play my best when I’m away (in Malaysia and China)," she said.

"China is going to be different, just playing in their weather, and I will have to get used to the
differences.

"It will also be my first trip overseas, so that will be interesting."

But Gordon has tasted international competition when she represented Queensland schoolgirls alongside fellow Cairns player Jordan Beard at the Pan-Pacific Games in 2008.

"I have played against Singapore and Japan and they were pretty tough," she said.

"I’m expecting the same against China."

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