The Matildas arrived on this April window already on the again foot.
Lacking 500+ caps’ price of expertise after current accidents to Steph Catley, Alanna Kennedy, Elise Kellond-Knight, Chloe Logarzo, Caitlin Foord, and Emily Gielnik, head coach Tony Gustavsson needed to quickly pivot to Plan B: particularly, who can step up within the absence of extra senior gamers?
It is a situation that is really essential to rehearse given the high-intensity context of a World Cup, the place back-to-back video games and little restoration time can wreak havoc on gamers’ our bodies.
In actual fact, we have already seen it occur this window with Emily Van Egmond and Holly McNamara each withdrawing from camp for “precautionary” medical causes, with Leicester Metropolis striker Remy Siemsen coming in as a substitute.
We did get some solutions towards Scotland, although.
Cortnee Vine confirmed she’s a superb stand-in for Caitlin Foord on the left wing, Charlotte Grant slotted in seamlessly for Steph Catley at left-back, and Clare Hunt continues to deputise for Alanna Kennedy to such a powerful diploma that she will not be the understudy for for much longer.
However a few others struggled. Striker Larissa Crummer wasn’t capable of fill the Sam Kerr-sized gap she was getting into (then once more, who else ever may?), whereas Mary Fowler was just a little wayward in midfield, regardless of having some pretty touches and some photographs on objective.
And whereas the central midfield pairing of Katrina Gorry and Kyra Cooney-Cross are obvious locks, they started to expire of legs in the direction of the top of that match, begging the query of which of the Matildas’ different ten thousand (roughly) midfielders might be launched with out disrupting their system or type.
What did you are taking from that loss to Scotland, fam? Did Gustavsson make the fitting choices within the pursuits of Plan B? What do you hope to see this morning towards a decidedly harder opponent?
