Matildas Coach on the Norway game

Matilda’s Coach Tom Sermanni speaks from Hangzhou, China today as the Matilda’s start to focus on the Norway game on Saturday night.

Sermanni is delighted with the underdog tag given to the Matilda’s by the Rest of the World.

“I think it suits us actually, although people have started to change their opinion after the win over Ghana. The conditions were the hottest and most humid so far and although the game is a little later on Saturday the pollution won’t go away.
Sermanni has injury concerns ahead of the game against Norway.


“Sally Shipard is probably out with a badly bruised toe, we thought it was broken, and Jo Peters also has an injury to her knee.

“The strength of this quad is we have Alicia Ferguson, Jo Burgess, Lauren Colthorpe and others who can come in and do a job.”

Norway are ranked 3rd in the World and Sermanni is expecting a more difficult game.
“They play the ball from the back, control the play in those areas, so we will change our structure so they can’t play the ball out.

We won’t sit back and defend because that would allow them to dominate the game. So we’ll make a few changes, bring in fresh legs and with the players in the squad we can do that,” said Sermanni.

“I was concerned about our lazy defending the other night, we’ve spoke about that at the team meeting. We have a couple of, shall we say, ageing defenders who have come back from injuries recently so we played Clare Polkinhorn for her pace and strength. She made some errors but also showed plenty of determination.

“Caitlin Munoz had a virus going into the game so with the humid conditions I switched her with Lisa De Vanna at half-time. Also I felt we could trouble Ghana with De Vanna’s pace.

“I was delighted with the result and the aggressive running of our forwards. Time and time again they got into positions. It was fantastic. They won’t get as many chances against Norway but the confidence and aggression in their running was great to see.”

“I never like to say I’m confident that we can get out of the group, but we are well-organised and the team is confident after the game against Ghana.”
Get on board the Matilda’s bandwagon at 10pm SBS Saturday night LIVE v Norway