This was published 7 years ago
Sydney Sevens 2017: Australian Pearls turn to new breed in quest for back-to-back Olympic gold
By Cameron Mee
As the afterglow of the Olympic victory begins to fade, the Australian women's sevens side has shifted its focus to the next four years with the ultimate goal of claiming back-to-back gold medals.
With every team now gunning for Australia's scalp and a number of players retiring, the Pearls have had to turn to a number of youngsters to fill the void.
Olympians Gemma Etheridge and Amy Turner have retired, while Nicole Beck has left the squad to have a baby. Emma Sykes, Shanice Parker and Hannah Southwell have all been added to the program in the intervening months, while a number of those who did not make the final Olympic squad will see their role grow.
Sykes made her World Series debut in November's Dubai Sevens tournament and has been named to play at next weekend's Sydney Sevens, the first Women's World Series event to be played in Australia.
Crash tackle: Emma Sykes (left) brings down Ryan Carlyle of the US in Dubai.Credit: Getty Images
"I wasn't expecting to get picked in the team, so when I did it was pretty good, considering it's the first tournament on home soil and I'm going to have my family there watching me, which is something that you can only ever wish for, for them to be able to watch you in a world series," Sykes said. "It's definitely going to be one to remember."
The 18-year-old understands the challenges she faces in replacing the departed players, but is confident the new guard will be able to bring something different to the squad.
"It's a new cycle in the group, so I feel like we have got different attributes that we bring to the team, compared to the ones that have left, but obviously we're going to do our best to try and fill those shoes," she said. "It's pretty big shoes to fill, but we're going to try our best to do it and hopefully it's good enough."
Sykes' transition to the team has been made easier by the squad welcoming her with open arms.
"Being so young it was pretty scary coming into that group of girls," she said. "But they're all so welcoming and they're all so friendly, it made it so easy to come in and transition into the squad, which has been really good."
Sykes is a multi-sport star, having represented Australia in touch football, Oztag and now rugby sevens and is viewed as one of Australia's brightest young prospects.
"I played touch my whole life growing up; I just played at a school comp for rugby and got picked up there," she said. "I always had a bit of aggression with touch; I was a bit more physical than others. I know I'm a smaller build, but I think it's the physicality of the game that I actually like the most. But also now that it's a professional sport, that's something that really made my choice a bit easier as well."
Australia suffered a shock defeat to New Zealand in the final of the Dubai Sevens, but Sykes is confident the team has addressed the weaknesses the Kiwis exposed.
"I think, overall, the girls, watching back on the footage, realised that our contact in defence wasn't that great, so we've been working on that a lot, and getting an offload channel, just the little things we saw over in Dubai we've worked on here, so hopefully when it comes to Sydney Sevens we're all right and we can do our best," she said.