Seventeen years ago, Clare Polkinghorne jogged out on to a sticky pitch in Hangzhou, China, and lined up with 10 teammates for her first Women’s World Cup match. It was 2007, and Polkinghorne was the youngest in the squad. She had made her Matildas debut the year before, after an accelerated rise through the youth ranks where she was identified from an early age as a future leader of the senior team.
The centre-back helped Australia win that opening group-stage match against Ghana 4-1; an important result, it turned out, as it helped them qualify for the quarter-finals for the very first time.
