Bay girls in line to play for country | Hawkes Bay Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Hawkes Bay

It's indubitably all in the X and Y chromosomes.

Whether it's mum's or dad's family line, the sporting trait is evident within a generation or can even be traced back to a descendant more than a century ago.

That's the contrasting tale of the two Hawke's Bay schoolgirls, who are in the equation to fly their country's flag in the international arena in 2014.

Ashley Arquette, of Havelock North Intermediate, and Sarah Morton, of Tikokino School, are in New Zealand Football's radar for the girls' national under-17 World Cup campaign.

Talent scouts identified the 12-year-olds for trials in Palmerston North and, in July, the pair received emails confirming their selection for development to hone their skills for international football.

"They are both very good technically and have good speed," their Hawke's Bay under-13 representative coach, Craig Barkle, tells SportToday.

Ashley, whose father, Chase Arquette, coaches the Havelock North Wanderers women's team, got into the sport five years ago when her parents gave her the choice to play some form of sport at the weekend for fitness.

Painting was the winger's passion too but it was becoming an expensive exercise.

Ashley gave netball a go six years ago in the first year but it failed to make an impression on her.

"I got bored and didn't like it," she says.

Having watched her father train and play for Havelock North Football Club since she was 3 years old, Ashley gravitated towards the beautiful game when club stalwarts approached her father to coach an age-group team.

"Ashley's mum [Yuko] was into dancing so she would tag along with me," Arquette explains, adding his daughter had no interest in the sport at all before that.

Barkle says Arquette contacted him late in 2007 asking how the sport could challenge his daughter's talent.

Technically she was sound but physically small, so Barkle, who was coaching Napier City Rovers first division women's team, got her into the club's age-group team.

Last year the "analytical" youngster started training with the Napier Girls' High School first XI team and now she and Sarah both belong to the Hawke's Bay United Academy, under coach Leon Birnie.

Ashley turns 13 on Boxing Day and will be able to play in the women's competition next year while Sarah, who just turned 12 a fortnight ago, will not be eligible until the 2012 season.

Sarah's genes in soccer have been traced back to the great-great-grandfather of her mother, Hana Cotter.

"He [the late John Greenlees] played for a team called Lochwinnch, in Scotland, before he came to Christchurch in 1903," Cotter reveals.

"I understand he shouted a lot of drinks after games before playing cricket in Christchurch and loving it," says the sister of Taradale Cricket Club batsman Jamie Cotter, who was also a Bay age-group soccer rep before the wicket game became a distraction.

She reckons it's definitely her family line, not those of Sarah's father, Steve Morton.

In fact, Sarah's brother Harry Morton, 19, who plays for the Marty Akers-coached Rovers team in the Homeworx Pacific Premiership competition, was also in the identified programme but missed national selection.

Sarah's 10-year-old sister, Rose, has also caught the eye of those in the know.

Hana Cotter says Sarah used to cry when asked to play the game as a 5-year-old.

"She used to bawl her eyes out and didn't want to play but we made her do it because she had to play some sort of sport.

"Harry used to play and she couldn't make up her mind what sport she wanted to play so because he was doing it, she had to as well," says Cotter with a laugh, adding she hated the first half of the season.

Says Sarah: "I don't know why I was crying. I was probably cold or a bit nervous."

She later found she enjoyed the thrill of taking the ball off other players by stifling them in tackles.

From there Sarah progressed to the Rovers' 10th grade mixed team where Dave Anstis was coach.

"He took a chance on her," her mother says, emphasising she was destined to become a defender.

"Let's face it, the boys are strong and love being strikers who want to score goals so Sarah went into the leftback position that no one wanted to play," she says, claiming her agility comes from doing a few triathlons in summer.

Barkle says he will employ Sarah's services in the centre-mid position where she'll be busy and have a more measured work rate.

The Bay girls will attend their first five-day national camp in Wellington in October during the third term school holidays.