The 16-year old will don the green and gold in June after being selected in the Australian 16-years girls team to tour Italy. 

It will be her first overseas trip and something she certainly wasn’t planning for.

“That was a big surprise to me,” she said not regarding her futsal abilities highly.

The Australian selectors would tend to disagree.

Jessica doesn’t know a lot about the Italy trip but can’t wait.

Her only disappointment is that younger sister Emma won’t be joining her.

In her opinion the better futsal player of the two, she believes she would have been in the side if she wasn’t injured.

But unfortunately the 15-year old was at the time battling a lower back injury that made it hard for her to run and kept her on the sidelines for a couple of months.

She was the first of the two to try futsal and was in 2017 part of the Oxley High under-14s side that finished third at the nationals. 

Last year the sisters joined forces, helping the Oxley under-16s reach the nationals, where they placed fifth.

Following her elder sister and brother into soccer, Jessica has loved the game pretty well ever since she started playing when she was five.

For Emma it took a bit longer for the bug to bite.

“At first I didn’t really like football,” she said.

It has grown on her since.

Last season saw the pair not only embarking on a new challenge in terms of competition but also on a positional front with both making the move from fullback, where they had played all of their careers, to the wing.

Emma made the move around half-way through last season. 

A couple of months later, Jessica followed suit, although she quipped that “she (Emma) scores more goals than me”.

Both played for Mid North Coast in the Northern NSW women’s premier league – Jessica with the under-20s and Emma the under-17s - after being spotted by the technical director of Mid North Coast Football at the Northern Inland Academy of Sport’s National Football Camp last year.

The pair are both NIAS alumni with Jessica part of the program in 2018 and Emma in 2016/2017.

Travelling up to four hours there and back each week was a big undertaking, but weighed up against the opportunities it presented it was too good to pass up.

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Both found it a great experience and learnt a lot.

Playing against teams in many cases older than them Jessica’s predominantly 16-year-old team exceeded expectations in finishing second.

“We lost in the grand final by one goal,” she said.

“We did really well.”

Emma’s side also had a strong season placing fourth.

She will this season step up to the under-20s, which she said will be a “good challenge” while Jessica will make the jump up to first grade.

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