Sydney Olympic baby shoots for gold in Paris

Olympic water polo player Tilly Kearns tells Senior Correspondent Mike Osborne how playing a series against the world No.1 USA team has primed the Aussie Stingers for gold. 

Matilda “Tilly” Kearns was born with elite sport pumping through her tiny veins.

Her father Phil played 67 rugby Tests as hooker during the Wallabies’ most successful era in the 1990s, while her mother Julie introduced her daughter to the Olympics two weeks before giving birth.

“My parents went to the Sydney 2000 Opening Ceremony and I was in mum’s belly and I was born the day after the Closing Ceremony,” Kearns says with a trademark laugh about her “Olympic debut”.

Now Kearns is heading to the Paris Games with her Aussie Stingers teammates determined to emulate the gold medal won by the Australian women in Sydney 24 years ago when women’s water polo made its first appearance at the Olympics.

“We are always chasing that Sydney gold medal,” she says. “They’re considered the golden girls and we’re lucky that some of them are still involved in our support staff now.”

The Stingers finished fifth at Kearns’ first Olympics in Tokyo, a result she labels as disappointing for multiple reasons.

“Crowds were one thing missing from Tokyo because no-one was able to get there,” she says. “We went there to medal and just lucked out in the quarter final against Russia and they beat us by one. We look back and we’re disappointed with fifth.

“People say ‘awesome you finished fifth’ but we were there to get a medal and didn’t quite make it so that’s definitely some fuel for Paris. I want to obviously beat fifth but really I want to be on top of that podium. I’m not going to settle for much less than that.”

The Stingers finished fourth at the 2023 world championships and in sixth place in Qatar in February (2024), and Kearns says continually just missing out on the medals keeps providing more inspiration to replicate that women’s gold medal from the Sydney Olympics.

“They achieved what every young Aussie water polo player is aspiring to,” she says.

So how did the daughter of a rugby legend – who won two World Cups and four Bledisloe Cups, including one as captain – end up playing water polo for Australia?

“I was always a sporty kid and I looked up to my mum who was very athletic and my dad who was a professional rugby player,” she says. 

“I filled-in for a junior water polo team on (Sydney’s) northern beaches who needed an extra player. I was 12 or 13 and went along and just jumped in and I was a natural. I just fell right into it and I really loved it.”

Kearns says her dad also played water polo when he was growing up but took the rugby path to sporting history. Kearns did the opposite – she tried rugby first and landed in an Olympic pool.

“I always thought I would go down the athlete pathway and I’m very grateful I did,” she says. “I loved swimming and netball and came from a rugby family. Water polo is a multi-faceted sport – you combine all the elements of those sports and you have water polo.”

Kearns says she never felt any extra pressure having a famous father who was an elite athlete.

“Growing up Dad didn’t give me any advice really, which I’m very grateful for,” she says. “He would give it if I asked for it, but he kind of steered clear of that and I think that was something in his upbringing as well. He was grateful that his parents kind of stayed out of it as well.

“I learned from him by observing, not by him forcing it on me. Of course he and mum are both in my corner and they drove me to all the sessions and I wouldn’t be here without them. It really does take a village.”

Kearns was named in her first national squad in 2017, made her debut in 2019 and now has almost 40 caps as a centre forward – still a few less than her Dad, but who’s counting and she’s quick to point out she lost two years of potential caps to COVID.

“Dad was an inspiration when I was a kid, to play for the national team like him one day,” she says.

As well as playing for Australia and the Sydney University Lions, Kearns also plays in the elite USA league for the University of Southern California, where she is studying media and communications.

Critically, a recent series of exhibition matches against the world number one USA team in America has helped the Stingers raise their game for the Paris Olympics.

“The US are the best in the world and they exposed our gaps, which at the time was disheartening,” she says. “But you look back on it and it’s a blessing because if we didn’t have that we wouldn’t know what we needed to work on.

“We could have been blind-sided at the Olympics so it showed us where we needed to improve, so when we get to Paris we’ll be ready. I think Paris is going to bring out our best and that’s exciting.”