For Sevens star Aden Ekanayake, not even battling for a SVNS World Championship could dent the ‘FOMO’ he was feeling as his Under 20s teammates were dominating in the Rugby Championship.
Now, the flanker returns eager to take the team into finals contention as they prepare to head to the U20 World Championships in Italy.
Watch every match of the U20 World Championships live and on-demand via Stan Sport.
Ekanayake is coming off an excellent debut season with the Australia Sevens squad, nominated for Debut Player of the Year.
“It was pretty cool just looking back on the year, everything that I achieved,” he told Rugby.com.au.
“You don't do it for the awards or anything, but to be up in the top three is pretty special.
“I was nervous and new to the game in Dubai and Cape Town, but as we went on, I started to focus on my role a little bit more, so for the last three tournaments, I really honed in on what my role was and felt a lot more comfortable on the field.”
Whilst Ekanayake was tearing up the SVNS World Series, conversations were still happening with 20s coach Chris Whitaker around featuring in July’s hallmark event for under-age talent.
The Gordon product featured in last year’s tournament but knows the competition for spots has gone up significantly since 2024.
“‘Whits’ said just focus on your Sevens footy for however long and then after that we can bring you in and get you up to speed. It was very cool looking on. I was getting a bit of FOMO, honestly, watching the boys because they had an undefeated run,” he admits.
“The footy that they were playing was really good and I think that's really good for the team…For me coming back in, there's no spot that's mine for sure, even though I was there last year or anything.
“Everything's up for grabs and no spot is locked in.”
The U20s tournament will see teams play matches every five days, which Ekanayake and fellow Sevens star Sid Harvey are used to dealing with on the SVNS World Series.
“I think the main part would be the time that you actually take to switch on and switch off,” he said about the keys to dealing with the short turnaround.
“Sevens there might be a two-hour turnaround or something between the end of a game and the start of your warm-up, so the ability to switch off completely, forget about footy for maybe half an hour, an hour, and then turn it back on and go back into footy mode and start thinking about the next one is pretty good. “Especially five-day turnarounds, you'll definitely need to be able to do that with four/five weeks of it over in Italy. You'll need to be able to do that, otherwise you're just going to get mentally exhausted and that’s the same with the Sevens circuit.”
Meanwhile, the Australia U20s squad was dealt a blow after Reds star Dre Pakeho was ruled out with a calf injury.
Pakeho will be replaced by Brumbies midfielder Malakye Enasio, who started in the win over South Africa.
