1. Sam Kerr starts
The will-she-won’t-she intrigue surrounding Sam Kerr’s fitness or otherwise to start a game again dominated pre-match conversations. By Tuesday afternoon, it appeared the captain would again start on the bench, after coach Tony Gustavsson teased the media with a line about his preference for continuity. It was perhaps with some surprise then to see Kerr’s name in the starting XI for the clash against England, with Emily van Egmond dropping to the bench to make way for the Chelsea striker. But it was a nice surprise nonetheless that gave Australia a huge boost at a critical juncture.
2. A boisterous crowd
It’s difficult to place an exact value on the advantage a partisan crowd affords the home team, but having watched the Matildas play in sold-out stadiums throughout this tournament, England were aware of what they were about to come up against at Stadium Australia. Another 75,000 poured through the turnstiles in Sydney, and any attempts to silence them failed as, if anything, England’s overly physical tactics early on and efforts to run the clock down towards full-time only succeeded in riling the crowd up further. Not that it seemed to matter in the end.
3. England get physical
After the vagaries of the draw pitted England and Australia against each other in a sporting contest once again, the recent Ashes series featured prominently in recent discourse about famous rivalries between these two nations. But England’s inspiration in Sydney appeared to be more Bodyline than Bazball as the Lionesses roared out of the blocks and imposed their physicality. Kerr in particular came in for some rough treatment, resulting in a yellow card for Alex Greenwood just 10 minutes into the game. If it was meant to serve as an early warning from the referee Tori Penso, it didn’t have the desired effect and the tough tackles continued to fly, none of which the American official punished with another booking. Only Chloe Kelly joined Greenwood in the book as the game wound down, for needlessly introducing a second ball on to the pitch.
4. The goal a nation had been waiting for
Five-and-a-half games into this tournament, the moment Australia had been waiting for finally arrived in the 63rd minute. Trailing to Ella Toone’s opener, the Matildas needed a spark from somewhere, some magic conjured out of nothing to get them back into this game and revive their hopes of progressing to the World Cup final. Kerr delivered. Collecting the ball just inside her own half, she hared off towards England’s goal. Millie Bright and Jess Carter, two of her Chelsea teammates who should have known better, backed off and refused to put in a challenge, allowing Kerr into shooting range. A second later, as England’s goalkeeper Mary Earps flailed and the ball bulged the back of the net, the stadium exploded. And for the next eight minutes, hope returned.
5. Clinical England
When the match was teetering on a knife-edge, the Lionesses proved themselves the better team in their approach and decision-making. In a dominant opening 20 minutes, they accumulated 132 passes to the hosts’ 34 to manage the moment. Following an Australian surge at either side of half-time, their ability to maintain possession helped take the sting out of the Matildas’ press. Then as the game threatened to get away following Kerr’s wonder-strike, a direct approach delivered the second goal. But nowhere was their professional approach more obvious than in their liberal use of time-wasting in the final 10 minutes. The majority Australian crowd might have booed, but popularity was a lower priority than a place in Sunday’s World Cup final.
6. Three minutes of torment
The margins can be fine in football. Kerr had two glorious opportunities to level to 2-2, a scoreline from which anything could have happened. On 82 minutes, a weighted Mary Fowler cross that curved from the left in towards Earps found Kerr, who had snuck in behind the defence. But she got too much on the header, which bounced up and over the crossbar. Less than three minutes later, an Australian corner was met with a weak punch from Earps. Kerr was unmarked six metres out and the ball fell to her at an inviting height. But she sliced her volley, sending it wide. Just over a minute later, Alessia Russo scored to give England a 3-1 lead. Australian fans were left to wonder what might have been.
