Wallaby Phil Kearns’s daughter, Tilly Kearns, chasing Tokyo Olympic water polo spot
She was bought up in a rugby union household but there is a very good reason Tilly Kearns, daughter of former Wallaby Phil Kearns, doesn’t play the game. VIDEO.
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Tilly Kearns said there is a compelling reason she didn’t follow her former Australian international father Phil into the world of rugby union.
The Tokyo Olympic hopeful isn’t kidding when she said she is at her best in the water.
On land, the 19-year-old maintains she is “as clumsy as”.
“I played a bit of touch here and there but I’m not a land animal and it’s very evident,” the Mosman teenager said.
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“I’m just terrible at running and fall over a lot. I’ve got, you know, big feet, big legs, so I’m pretty clumsy on land.
“But it feels right when I’m in the water.”
She might not have inherited his skill on land but there is one attribute Kearns does share with her former Wallaby father and that’s her love of physicality.
It’s what first drew her to water polo and it’s what has kept her in the game since her first foray into the sport she has described as like rugby in water at around 13.
“I’m like a big strong girl so I like going out and being stronger than everyone else,” said Kearns, whose father also played the sport in his youth before forging a 67 Test career in rugby union, which included being part of two successful Australian World Cup campaigns
“I love the hustle of it. I love the physicality,” she said.
“I just love, you know, that in the In the water, you can wrestle and do anything you want pretty much.”
Despite immediately taking to the sport, Kearns admitted she wasn’t an instant hit with her teammates.
”At the start I was horrible and I can have a few of my teammates vouch for that. They didn’t like me very much because I was such a liability,” she said.
“They said that I couldn’t pass and catch.
“I was just annoying in the pool, I always got in the way.”
Now firmly ensconced in the Australian Stingers squad since she was 16, Kearns is also a coach in the Sydney northern beaches Friday night competition.
The teenager is currently spending her isolation at the family home at Mosman where she maintains board games are getting highly competitive between her family.
She admits the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics has not impacted her as much as her teammates due to her age.
Kearns and the Stingers were en route to a tournament in Italy when the coronavirus pandemic escalated last month.
The squad spent more than 30 hours in Dubai before making their way back to Australia where they are now all in individual isolation but still working on fitness programs set out by Water Polo Australia.