No one expected Australia’s women’s water polo team to win a medal at the Paris Olympics – except the Stingers themselves. Centre forward Tilly Kearns tells Editor in Chief Michelle Giglio about her journey to the podium.
Tilly Kearns is on a high. She has just returned from a well-earned trip to Bali following the Stingers’ silver medal in Paris, and she is about to be reunited with her boyfriend in the USA after spending eight months apart. Life is looking good when we meet at Sails in Lavender Bay for a chat about what led the Stingers to their silver-medal moment in September.
The McMahons Point resident actually stumbled into water polo by accident, as initially Tilly thought she may go to the Olympics as a swimmer. Like many children growing up, she played netball across the North Shore and did swimming squads, with the family based in Mosman. Given Tilly’s father is former Wallaby captain Phil Kearns, it’s no surprise she also grew up with a bit of rugby, with older brothers Wilson and Finn making it their primary sport.
But one day, at 13, she filled in for the Sydney Northern Breakers Water Polo Club at Manly pool, and ‘fell in love’ with the sport. “I loved swimming, I loved netball. And I came from a rugby background, so if you combine all those three sports, you get water polo.
“Once I tried water polo, (swimming) was totally out the window, because water polo is just so much better. It was really nice having some balls and some friends to train with and play with.”
Very quickly, the talented centre forward came under the radar and was picked for the junior national team. “As soon as I started, I realised I was good and I had potential and I just kept loving it.
“I fell in love with the team, the teammates and the friendship aspect for sure. And I ultimately think what’s kept me in the sport so long is the relationships that I’ve built, the people that I’ve met. Training is so fun when you’re there with your best friends, and especially playing in tournaments.
“We stayed in rooms with teammates and you hung out and, I was just obsessed with that.”
After just three years, aged 16, Tilly was picked for the Stingers squad. Still at school, Queenwood in Mosman, her training routine was ‘really tough’. Each morning she would wake at 4.15am and her mum or dad would drive her to Sydney Olympic Park in Homebush, waiting in the car for her to finish. Then she’d go straight to school, and when the bell rang, train for school water polo – and sometimes club straight after that, arriving home exhausted 17 hours later at 9.15pm. Then rinse and repeat. “It was brutal,” she says starkly. “Growing up playing elite sport was very tough.” What was driving her at such a tender age? “I just loved it. And I’m not one to quit.
“I am very passionate. I am very determined. I’m extremely competitive. So I think all of those attributes together, plus being with my friends, you’re all going through that gruelling regime together, so it makes it a whole lot better. And I was doing something cool and I loved that. Something different.”
Team Kearns: Tilly says having the support of her family in Paris ‘meant more than the world’
Despite all her hard work, Tilly was cut from the Stingers squad, which only made her more determined to make the team. Tilly told the head coach of the Australian team she was looking to get a scholarship at an American university to play in the renowned college water polo league. Tilly still recalls his response: “He said, ‘If you go, you won’t get picked for the Olympics.’”
Two weeks later she got a on plane to the USA.
“I couldn’t see enough improvements (playing in Australia),” Tilly explains. “And I wanted different coaching and different opportunities. So I knew that going to the American collegiate system was a really good option for me.
“I knew I had to sacrifice and take that risk to go and become so good that he had no choice but to add me into the team. And that’s ultimately what happened.
“It paid off!” she laughs.
It was no easy sailing, with Tilly fully aware that being so young, making the Olympics ‘was a big mountain I had to climb.’
But she had always wanted to be an Olympian, so decided that all of her choices would be about achieving that goal.
While studying a bachelor of communications at the University of Southern California (USC), Tilly discovered that playing water polo in the USA was a ‘whole another level.’ “When I went over there, USA were the reigning Olympic champions, the best in the world. So I was able to play with them, and see their techniques and their strategies and the way they read the game.
“And I think (given) I was so young, it was so valuable for me.”
After proving her worth, Tilly was re-selected for the Stingers in 2019, in the build up to Tokyo 2020. At that time, the Stingers had not been able to replicate the gold they won when the sport debuted at Sydney 2000 (Tilly was born the day of the closing ceremony!). There were bronzes in Beijing 2008 and London 2012, but the national team did not make the medal rounds in Rio 2016, placing sixth. At Tilly’s Olympic debut aged just 20 in Tokyo, the Stingers placed fifth.
In the lead up to Paris, the team struggled to place at competitions, and went into the Olympics ranked sixth. Tilly had never won ‘anything’ with the Stingers, except four weeks out from Paris at a warm-up event. “We would just constantly get knocked out, get knocked out, get knocked out.
“And there’s a point where it’s like, ‘Far out. Why do we do this?’”
But Tilly knew the difference between the Tokyo and Paris teams was ‘night and day.’ The key was nine months before Paris when the Stingers’ coaching team was revamped.
“A change in staff was absolutely the turning point for us,” Tilly explains. “They were incredible. They really turned our culture around and we had so much self-belief. We were a really great playing group and we believed in each other and we had a lot of respect for each other.”
Yet nobody expected the Stingers to medal in Paris. “Nobody except for us!” Tilly laughs. “We were the only ones that thought and knew that we could do it.
“It definitely was no accident that we got that silver medal,” she says starkly. “We worked our butts off for it. We were training in the pool for six hours a day. But on top of that, we had so many meetings to build up our confidence, install our team values, build up the culture. And we trusted the system that our coaches put in place.”
The team meetings involved ‘a lot of open discussion.’ “A lot of vulnerability and a lot of getting to know each other on a really, really deep and personal level so we had such strong connections outside of the pool, and that connection really translated into the water as well.”
Tilly (right) started playing water polo aged 13
The closeness of the team was evident after the Stingers semi-final victory against 2023 world champions USA. Vision of the screams, tears, jumping in the air and elation when the girls won 14-13 on penalties against one of the world’s best teams – with the knowledge they were guaranteed a medal in the final – was beamed repeatedly across Australia in news bulletins the morning of 8 September. It was a pivotal moment for the girls, given the Stingers had not placed higher than the quarter finals since London 2012.
“We’re a family,” Tilly reflects. “We are such a special group of girls. We have that special bond that no one else would ever know what it’s like. Only we know within our bubble. And it can’t be popped. We protect each other and we love each other and we back each other. So having that much trust in each other really got us to the end of the Games.”
How did they manage to focus on the final against ‘red-hot’ favourites Spain? “We had the rest of the night to really feel those emotions and laugh and cry and be so excited that yes, we’ve secured a medal regardless of its colour. I think a lot of teams maybe fall down the trap of (saying) ‘No, we can’t celebrate yet. We haven’t done it yet.’ But (a semi) is such an achievement. So the fact that we were allowed to relish in that moment was really special. But then we’re such a competitive and hardworking team that as soon as it turned to morning, we were like, ‘Okay, yeah, sure. But we want the gold.’”
Ultimately, Australia lost to Spain 9-11 in the final, and while the team was disappointed, Tilly says they were able to ‘step back and look at what we did as a team.’
“That was the best result we’ve had in 24 years since Sydney 2000. So I think regardless of what we got, we really made Australia proud. We’ve helped pick our program back up and inspire a whole generation of girls and boys who hopefully want to do something like what we did.”
It was the first time Tilly’s family had seen her compete at an Olympics, and it ‘meant more than the world’ to her. “Just knowing that you’re playing for someone bigger than yourself. You’re playing for your country, but also you’re doing it for them because they sacrificed so much, especially mum and dad, they gave so much for me to be able to live out that dream.”
Mum Julie and dad Phil; Left: Boyfriend Justin flew 11 hours just to see Tilly play in the final – but the couple only had time for a quick hug after the match before he flew back to the USA
Pot-Olympics, Tilly is having a few months off in the USA before she goes back to USC to finish her degree. It has given her some much-needed face-to-face time with boyfriend Justin Dedich – who probably takes the prize for the most dedicated Olympic partner. Justin could not attend the Olympics as he was in pre-season training as an NFL rookie for the Los Angeles Rams. But unbeknownst to Tilly, he flew into Paris for 24 hours to see her play in the final – with Tilly only seeing him just before the team jumped in the pool. “I didn’t think about him at all that day. And then I saw him in the crowd and I absolutely could not believe it because he had his first game the next day.”
Making the next Olympics in Los Angeles 2028 is definitely a goal for Tilly, and in the meantime she is enjoying the occasional appearance on Channel 9’s Wide World of Sports and can see herself pursuing a career in the media.
In terms of life outside of water polo, she has a huge presence on social media, with 139,000 followers on Instagram and more than half a million on TikTok where some of her videos about being an elite athlete get millions of views. Tilly keeps it real, sometimes talking about simple but annoying things like how red her eyes get from all the pool chlorine exposure. But she is also deeply serious about getting more girls to participate in sport through accessible pathways. “What I’m passionate about is building these programs where girls can just play for fun and get together a team just to stay fit and active,” she explains.
“My message to the younger girls is to find other meanings about it. Because sport is such a beautiful thing and not everyone gets to go to an Olympics, and that’s not really what sport is about.”
Her motto is ‘you can’t be something that you can’t see,’ and through her socials she aims to show the ‘authentic’ side of sport.
“I love that I’m the person who can introduce the sport firstly to so many people, but also show what kind of a life and what things water polo can create for you. It’s taken me all over the world. I just want nothing more than to grow my sport and inspire younger kids to follow my footsteps and chase their dreams.”
