England captain Leah Williamson says defeat to Australia will put fire in the belly of the Lionesses ahead of this summer’s World Cup.
Australia beat England 2-0 at Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium on Tuesday night to end their 30-game unbeaten and inflict the first defeat of the Sarina Wiegman era.
Chelsea striker Sam Kerr opened the scoring in the first-half after capitalising on an error from Williamson and Charlotte Grant added a second after the break.
After winning the European Championship last summer, England will head to the World Cup as one of the favourites to go all the way and Williamson says this loss to co-hosts Australia only motivates them more.
“We want to learn, we have wanted to learn this whole time, we have wanted to be pushed to our limit and we need to take it up a new level,” she said. “In the past we have won these games, we’ve turned them around, but actually tonight to lose it gives you a bit of fire.
“To be honest, sometimes you have to take blessings in disguise, and I think maybe that is not the worst thing that could happen to us. I think we looked like we were lacking ideas a bit on the ball. Definitely it could have been better and we got punished.
“I think efficiency is the word Sarina used. We just weren’t as efficient as we usually are. We need to figure out why.”
England will begin their World Cup campaign against Haiti on July 22, before facing fellow Group D sides Denmark and China.
Their opponents for the last-16 will come from Group B, which contains Australia, but striker Alessia Russo isn’t worried about Tuesday night’s defeat impacting any future showdown.
“No, no concerns,” she said. “These are lessons that we want to learn going into the World Cup. We will be ready to face anyone come July.
“All I can say is lessons learned and we will build on it. I wouldn’t say I would ever want to lose a football game to learn from it, but I think it is important to have these lessons.”
