The youngest Matilda could become our biggest star

Mary Fowler is the youngest Matilda but after a standout 2023 World Cup tournament she has emerged as a vital cog in an Australian team that won the heart of a nation.

Ivan Karlovic remembers talking to former Matildas coach Alen Stajcic about the rising talent that was Mary Fowler.

At the time Karlovic was the coach of the Adelaide United women’s team and Stajcic had given Fowler her national team debut against Brazil at the tender age of 15.

“Staj had spoken to me about her and it was like, ‘Mate, she’s as good as I’ve seen’,’’ Karlovic said.

Karlovic didn’t need much convincing and signed Fowler to her first professional contract. He soon witnessed what Stajcic had seen.

“You could see she was a top-class player in the making and you could see she had all the attributes,’’ he said. “She has the ability to turn the player in tight spaces and then play exceptional penetrating passes, both left and right. Comfortably.’’

Mary Fowler is challenged by Georgia Stanway of England during the FIFA Women's World Cup Semi Final match. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

Fowler’s talent has been on display for all to see in this World Cup. That ability to evade even the closest of attention, that capacity to see and deliver the pass that few others could imagine. Think of the quick footwork and the sweeping delivery that led to Caitlin Foord scoring against Denmark. Think of the rasping penalty she buried in that shootout against France. Not many people can hit a ball like that.

“Her striking of the ball is exceptional, she’s got great technique and both left foot and right foot,’’ Karlovic said.

Karlovic didn’t have Fowler for long. Her talent was never going to be confined to Australia. Fowler scored on her debut but played only seven games for the Reds before she signed for Montpellier in France, moving to Europe by herself a month before she turned 17. These days she is plying her trade for Manchester City in England’s Women’s Super League.

Fowler is still only 20, and the youngest player in the Matildas’ squad, but as Karlovic noted “she plays and acts way beyond her years’’. That maturity has been on display as Fowler helped plug the gap left by Sam Kerr’s calf-induced absence for much of the tournament and she was one of the Matildas’ better players in the 3-1 semi-final loss to England on Wednesday.

Students at Holy Cross will be cheering on former student Mary Fowler. Picture: Brendan Radke

Fowler will again be key when the Matildas take on Sweden on Saturday’s third-place playoff.

Perhaps that has something to do with her upbringing. Fowler is the middle child in a family of five. Her father Kevin is Irish, her mother Nido is from Papua New Guinea.

It was a family that liked to play football. Her older sister, Ciara, would play with her in Adelaide. Her brother, Caoimhim, played youth football for Ireland. There were mighty backyard battles that also involved brother Seamus and sister Louise.

Fowler started playing at seven and was usually the only girl in the team in those early days. As she grew older her talent became evident and as a 10-year-old was playing in an under-12 team with Ciara.

In a recent documentary on her life, streaming on 7Plus, one of Fowler’s early coaches Stacey Fittock said some rival coaches weren’t impressed their boys were being dominated by a 10-year-old girl.

“The coach of the other team went ballistic at halftime because he couldn’t believe his boys’ team were losing to a bunch of girls,’’ he said.

Even worse was when a local coach complained about Mary playing because she was “too young’’.

“The office came over and made us remove Mary from the game,’’ Fittock said. “It was a pretty sad day. A sad day for regional sports, I think, let alone a 10-year-old girl.’’

In the documentary, Fowler said she didn’t understand why she couldn’t play with the team and then used it for motivation during trials for the Queensland under-12s team.

“I was just thinking that if I was making the Queensland state team, the best under-12 girls in the state, going two years up as they said was too much, if I made that, then for me would just be a FU in their face,’’ Fowler said.

The doco then cuts to footage from the under-12s schools’ championships with a 10-year-old Fowler bursting between two bigger girls to slide a ball into the net.

She also said that something changed in her at that point.

“Now I felt I could do anything if I put my mind to it,’’ she said.

As her mother, Nido, said: “Mary is Mary. Mary wants to do something, Mary will do it. Mary will not wait for anyone to tell her not to do it.’’

By 15 she was playing for Australia. At 16 she went to the World Cup in France, even though she didn’t play any minutes.

Adelaide United player Dylan Holmes remembers meeting a 16-year-old unlike any other when Fowler moved to South Australia. Fowler and her sister, Ciara, lived with Dylan’s family in the Adelaide Hills town of Heathfield when they moved to SA.

“Mary was different to any 16-year-old I had ever met,’’ Holmes said. “She was sweet and kind, but she was so driven, it was a mentality I had not seen in a 16-year-old before.

“She was very professional, doing all the right things,’’ she said. “This was the thing she wanted, she was very driven and wanted to be a professional player.

“Football was the main focus of her life. She was incredibly talented, but also very physically and mentally mature for someone who was 16.’’

Mary Fowler of Adelaide United in action in 2019. Picture: Jonathan DiMaggio/Getty Images

And, according to Holmes, one of the most competitive people she has met.

Heathfield is close to the bigger Adelaide Hills’ town of Stirling and there is an outdoor table tennis table near the local pub. Holmes said Mary and Ciara would spend hours battling it out.

“They would spend hours out there playing table tennis,’’ she said. “You would drive by and they would be playing. You would drive back a few hours later and they would still be playing.

“I think they would just keep going until they fell down.’’

In the documentary, Fowler talks candidly about growing up, learning to be herself, how periods affect performance and how, at times, she has felt the pressure to perform, especially after signing for a big club such as Manchester City.

“I think I just put so much pressure on myself to kind of live up to the expectation of Mary Fowler being the next star,’’ she said.

It took Fowler 10 games to score her first goal for City, coincidentally past Australian teammate Mackenzie Arnold who was playing for West Ham, but club boss Gareth Taylor is impressed by the Australian’s progress despite giving her limited game time.

“The good thing with Mary is that she is really coachable and I think she really buys into what we’re trying to do here at the club,’’ Taylor told the Keep-Up website. “Game time has to be earned and we trust Mary that she’s going to be a really good players for the club.’’

Fowler’s performances at the World Cup have raised expectations that she will be Sam Kerr’s eventual successor as the Matildas’ leading light. She has already signed sponsorship contracts with Adidas and Rebel Sport and with the nation falling in love with the Matildas, Fowler can expect more companies to knock at her manager’s door.

Fowler has said she has grown up in recent years, become more a team player and more comfortable in her own skin. Outside the game she finds comfort in drawing and writing. She has packed a lot into 20 years. Before the World Cup she told News Corp Australia she had “found myself a lot more’’.

“When you are a teenager you obviously question a lot of things, you don’t know what you want to do with your life, you don’t even know why you exist,’’ she said. “Now I’m at a point where I’m just content with where I’m at, I know who I am.’’

As does everybody else.