Sykes on building minutes and making Edinburgh home
Edinburgh Rugby lock Marshall Sykes has enjoyed an impressive start to the season, featuring in all four rounds of BKT United Rugby Championship action.
The Scotland internationalist has been a key figure in the capital side’s engine room, and his contributions have not gone unnoticed, with Sykes voted Scottish Building Society Player of the Month for September.
“Yeah, my mum made a lot of fake email accounts,” joked Sykes. “No, it was good! As I say, it’s tricky when you’ve won Player of the Month after a couple of losses, but at the same time, it just motivates you to keep pushing on and trying to improve performance each week.”
Sykes has enjoyed increased playing time so far this this season, starting against Leinster, Vodacom Bulls and Emirates Lions in Rounds 1 to 3, before coming off the bench in Saturday’s impressive victory over DHL Stormers at Hive Stadium.
“It was my goal coming into the pre-season to build minutes. I’m still not entirely happy with performances, there’s obviously a lot to grow on, but for me, I kind of forgot what it was like to play more than 20-30 minutes each week.”
The win over DHL Stormers was a significant boost for both Sykes and Edinburgh, with the capital side bouncing back from a heavy defeat in Johannesburg in Round 3.
With the pressure on to secure a win in front of the Hive Stadium faithful, Sean Everitt’s side delivered.
“I think it was more of an expectation,” continued Sykes. “I suppose you could say we put pressure on ourselves, because of all the external noise, but at the end of the day, the castle wasn’t broken.
“We just had to get our stuff right. We knew what we had to do, and you could see that we put that out there against Stormers.
“Obviously it wasn’t the complete performance, and that’s what we’ll be going for against Cardiff this weekend.”
Sykes was particularly impressed with Edinburgh’s execution and dominance in Saturday’s 38-7 victory over DHL Stormers, which saw the South African side suffer their largest ever URC loss.
“Yeah, it was such a great feeling after Stormers. Even in the game, robotic isn’t the word, but we had our processes, and we just kept rinsing and repeating it.
“I think we put pressure on them, and that forced a lot of errors, and got us to where we wanted to play, and you could see we were converting.”
At the age of just 24, Sykes has already amassed 66 appearances for Edinburgh Rugby since making his debut during the 2020-21 season.
However, despite the knowledge he brings to the capital pack, Sykes admits he is still learning from more experienced campaigners like Grant Gilchrist and Sam Skinner.
“I’m still learning it myself. Obviously, I’ve got probably the physical side that I bring to it, but there’s so much of the technical side I’m learning at the moment.
“Everyone in the second-row is real competitive. Yes, there’s little bits, but I think in general, the locks, we’ve all got our own expertise. I think a big thing for us over the past couple of years is we try to help each other.
“There’s no animosity between us if someone’s picked and someone’s not. It’s just driving that culture of improving each other, because the more we compete, if someone gets dropped, someone’s playing better, something like that, in the bigger picture, we’re all going to play, but the team’s going to win more.”
Not just content with making waves on the pitch, Sykes has enjoyed plenty of recent highlights away from the rugby field too.
Having got engaged to long-term girlfriend Lucy in April, Sykes and his partner are more than settled in a city that he now calls home.
“I’m over the moon she said yes! It really is the old cliche of I feel like the luckiest man alive,” explained Sykes.
“When me and Lucy moved to Scotland, I was 19 and Lucy was 18. It was pretty intense for a young couple to move during the heights of COVID.
“But no, Edinburgh is now home for us. We’ve got a little dog here, Barney. A little beagle, he keeps us on his toes. So no, we absolutely love it here.