Australian defender, Stephanie Catley, has heaped plaudits on the Super Falcons team’s style of play in the wake of their remarkable 3-2 win over The Matildas on Thursday, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.
Catley, who led the Aussies in the absence of influential captain Sam Kerr, admitted that the nine-time African champions were devastating with their counter-attacks.
According to the game’s statistics, Australia had 26 attempts on goal to Nigeria’s 11 but could only muster one more attempt —seven to Nigeria’s six — that was actually on target.
The Matildas also got 15 corners to Nigeria’s two, but both sides mustered one goal each from those set-piece opportunities.
“Obviously extremely disappointed,” Catley said after the game. “I think this was a massive opportunity for us that we obviously let slide, but it’s tournament football, and this sort of thing happens.
“We’ve just got to move on as quickly as possible – on to Canada now. This is what World Cups are all about.
“It was definitely not our best performance. We created a lot of opportunities that we potentially could have finished – I haven’t seen the statistics, but I assume we had a fair few shots. If some of those go in, maybe it’s a different story, but they (Nigeria) were great on the counter, and they finished their chances.”
Australia must beat Olympic champions Canada in Melbourne next Monday to advance to the next round of the competition.
