There were plenty of themes to the Matildas’ 3-0 defeat to England, a reverse in which the margin perhaps flattered the control the hosts demonstrated at Pride Park, and few of the narratives on the night were positive for Australia. The Lionesses hardly got out of third gear but still looked like they were largely toying with their opponents, who struggled to get the ball out of their own half even before Alanna Kennedy received a straight red card for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity in just the 19th minute.
Kennedy’s lapse in judgement and resulting sacrifice was punished when Lucy Bronze redirected the rebound of Aggie Beever-Jones’s resulting free kick back to the Chelsea forward, who lasered an effort into the top corner. A deserved two-goal margin (three or potentially even more would not have been all that unreasonable) was delivered just before half-time when Bronze used the one-player advantage to ghost into a mile of space and comfortably dispatch a through ball beyond Mackenzie Arnold, ending a move in which England ripped through their Australian backline with a casual ease. Adding some salt to wounds, late VAR intervention awarded England a 98th-minute penalty for a Katrina Gorry foul, one easily dispatched by Georgia Stanway.
