The Australian Women's National Team (Qantas Matildas) have played their second scoreless draw in as many days, following their overnight match against Japan in Sendai City, Japan to complete the 3-nations international women's soccer tournament.
Coach Adrian Santrac was pleased with his team's improved showing against the fancied Japanese, complimenting the hosts on their style of play and level of understanding within their team, while acknowledging that the Qantas Matildas still have areas of improvement that they can focus on in the lead-up to September's FIFA Women's World Cup in the USA.
"This was a vastly improved performance on our last game (against the Republic of Korea), it was a very, very hard game and Japan showed that they are a strong team with a high technical ability and they are very competitive, but we competed extremely well too. This game was exactly what we needed now - and we need a lot more of these high intensity, quality games before the World Cup begins later this year," said coach Adrian Santrac.
"The game was a contest between two teams who value playing football, with both teams attempting to stamp their style of game and authority on each other, however at the moment Japan are more fluent and play with a greater level of understanding, which is to be expected at this time given they have just completed their World Cup qualifiers.
"I'm not concerned at this stage with the two scoreless draws as we haven't been together or played competitive football since April, and these matches have proved that we need to step up our level of performance since those last Oceania matches. I know that we will still need to further improve for the World Cup tournament if we want to achieve our goals - the key issue here is securing more of these games of quality before September.
"Our defence was outstanding today, we had a good understanding and level of teamwork, so it is difficult to single out any players. But I felt Di (Alagich) and Cheryl (Salisbury) were very strong in defence, Rhian (Davies) competed well, Cass (Kell) had a solid game in goal, Tal (Karp) was quietly effective and Joey (Peters) is finding her feet in the national team again.
"These games were what we desperately needed. This tournament has highlighted the areas of our game we need to improve before the World Cup. While defensively we have a strong foundation, in the middle and front thirds our cohesion and understanding are areas we will need to prioritise when we head into camp in Canberra and for our remaining lead-up matches to September.
"What we need are more international games. In order to gain that improvement we need to be tested at the highest level. As the Women's World Cup draws closer it is important that we experience many more intense games against high quality teams. The players are very focussed and committed to doing anything they need to do to be fully prepared for the World Cup," concluded Adrian Santrac.
The Qantas Matildas depart Japan today (Mon) and arrive back in Australia tomorrow morning, travelling straight to Canberra where they have an AIS Training Camp until 9 August. The four WUSA players fly back to their clubs from Japan.