Life is sweet for young Edinburgh lock Sykes
It’s been a pick and mix kind of season for Edinburgh but young forward Marshall Sykes has grasped his opportunity both on and off the pitch.
As well as signing his first pro contract, the lock has embarked on a lockdown business venture.
He and partner Lucy Fruin have set up on an online sweet store called the Treat Plug which supplies customers via mail-order.
“Me and my missus were scheming how to get rich quick, so we thought we’d start punting some sweets,” he explained.
“We’d been on Tik-tok andseenthattherearehundreds of these sweet companies, and we knew someonethathadstartedoneand been really successful with it,andwerealisedthatthere wasn’t really one in Edinburgh, so we thought why not give it a crack.”
He used his Edinburgh team-mates as guinea pigs and received favourable feedback .
“We brought in all these sweets for the lads – a couple of kilos – and that went down a treat,” said Sykes, a Scotland Under-20 international. “The boys dropped it into their stories, it went really well, the food bloggers got hold of it, and it just kicked on from there.
“We’ve gone from having around 50 kilos of sweets to over 2-300. We’re going to have to put a lock and key on it in the flat.”
Sykes, who played for Ayrshire Bulls in the 201920 season, is loving life as a full-time pro and has made six appearances for Edinburgh this season. He says he would be happy to go back to Super6 next seasonifitmeantplayingmore games but in the meantime he is happy to juggle rugby and selling sweets.