Australia skipper Steph Catley admits Matildas harnessed Sam Kerr’s spirit in Ireland win

As Louise Quinn noted earlier in the week, a team isn’t made up of just one star player. However, if that player is the record Australian and Chelsea goalscorer Sam Kerr it can be difficult/dangerous if you’re an Irish player to take your eyes off of her. So when the news came an hour before kick-off that she was being pulled due to a calf injury, there was a palpable change in atmosphere at Stadium Australia.

For the Irish, an opportunity: this is a World up, anything can happen. A sense of relief as it could as easily have been Ireland lamenting the loss of Denise O’Sullivan to an injury sustained in the behind-closed doors game against Colombia. For the Australians, a loss of leadership – and for sponsors the face of the Women’s World Cup and the national team.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Kerr earned $3.3 million last year, at a rate of 10 times the average of her Australian team-mates, due to her Chelsea contract, her ongoing partnership with Nike and an EA Sports endorsement. This is evidently the cost of bearing the weight of a nation’s hopes on your shoulders, with Australia optimistic that they can go far in the tournament, if not, win the whole thing, the first country to win a home World Cup since 1999.

Having won three Golden Boots, been nominated for the Ballon d’Or four times, Kerr is indisputable and yet her prominence and popularity often means the rest of the Australian team are overlooked, If Kerr is the sun of the Australians, the rest of them are still stars, none more so than Irish-eligible Mary Fowler, the 20-year-old Manchester City forward, who made her debut at 16, after stellar performances at the underage national level. On Thursday, they showed they could shine without her.

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Katie McCabe’s Arsenal team-mate Steph Catley took over Kerr’s captain duties and led the team out to a record-breaking home crowd of 75,784 in a 4-4-2 formation. Kerr, bibbed on the sidelines, looked on, her face in stark contrast to her starting team-mates, who looked excited and ready to go.

After the initial shock news of Kerr’s absence from the squad, the crowd was jubilant, evidently nothing could dampen the spirits of the biggest sporting event in Australia since the Olympics.

Fowler, who struggled for game time in Manchester City, has netted 10 goals for Australia, including two against Ireland in their defeat in Tallaght in 2021, but was unable to get much foothold in the game.

In the post-match press conference, player of the match Catley said that the team were “completely heartbroken” at Kerr’s injury.

“Obviously losing a player like that, probably the best player in the world, and her as a person, just heartbroken. We had to use her spirit to push on,” said Catley, who scored the game-winning penalty.

The prevailing narrative going into the game was that Ireland would have a tough day out against the co-hosts, in particular in dealing with Kerr. This line of questioning didn’t acknowledge the quiet confidence of Vera Pauw’s side on their debut, who held their own for the duration of the game, with increasing pressure being put on the Australian defence towards the end of the second half.

“Sam Kerr is of course one of, maybe the top striker of the world, the fact she did not play, was a surprise for us, of course we were happy with that,” said Pauw. “Australia has so many powerful and strong and fast attacking players that our game plan did not change because of that. The way they played, we had prepared for that. We have taken all their intentions out in the way that they want to get beyond the defensive line, a huge, huge compliment for our team, that’s what they were aiming for.”

Australian head coach Tony Gustavsson acknowledged that they knew “it was going to be a tough game”, with Ireland “committed in their defending actions, a really physical team”.

He confirmed that they had known that Kerr would be unlikely to play at the press conference the day before the game, but as they were “waiting on the results of a scan” they opted to wait to find out before sharing the news.

Additionally, he figured that Kerr would be a big part of Ireland’s game plan and “didn’t want to give them time in advance”.

“We were honest with the team sheet, it went out with the news, but we wanted to wait until the last second, until we got to the stadium. It was obviously devastating for me, for Sam, for the players.

“As a coach, it’s my job to look at different scenarios, ‘what if, what if, what if’, and we had a couple of opportunities to play without her in the two-year prep. Recently the last 30 minutes in the game against France, which we managed to win 1-0, so the team had the belief. But I don’t go there too often as a coach with those thoughts, I get nervous doing that.

“What I can say is that Kerr was clear [to her team-mates] ‘this is not about me, this is about you, and about the team playing together’. To be able to do that in that devastating moment says a lot about her personally as a captain of this team.”

Specific details of the when, where, how, severity of the injury was kept under wraps, out of “respect for Sam, for the players”.

“I’m very happy, three points in an opening game in the World Cup, to get that win and first game done, we knew it’d be one of those games where we knew we just needed to find a way to win. That shows our maturity in this team, doing it with five debutants, who could have gotten nervous and shaky and lose their heads.”

“In terms of ranking, some people would say there’s tougher games to come.”