Big win over Chile but sloppy first half will concern Matildas coach Alen Stajcic

As footballers intone incessantly, the Matildas will ‘take the positives’ in their win over Chile – not least their ability to press home an opening ruthlessly - but it wasn’t all good news.

Matildas striker Caitlin Foord scored her first hat-trick for her country. Picture: Getty Images

No wonder Matildas boss Alen Stajcic wore a furrowed brow at fulltime, for all that his side had reversed last Saturday’s defeat to Chile and thumped home five unanswered goals.

Quite apart from the damage to Australia’s World Cup ranking that defeat at the weekend will do, there is much to work through from a two-game series that wasn’t entirely the home-team parade the fans had anticipated.

BOUNCE BACK: Matildas find form to demolish Chile

As footballers intone incessantly, the Matildas will “take the positives” – not least their ability to press home an opening ruthlessly.

Before Sam Kerr opened the scoring it was scarcely a vintage performance from the home side, during a first half littered with misplaced passes and dubious first touches.

The Matildas are back in business. Picture: Getty.

That isn’t to take anything from Chile, whose composure on the ball and attacking movement were easy on the eye. If they lacked a cutting edge, it was still a performance to suggest they will cause teams trouble at the World Cup.

All kinds of trouble, too, for the Australian players at times were visibly frustrated by the shirt tugs and game disruption that Korean referee Yujeong Kim declined to clamp down on.

It’s a ploy the Matildas cannot rise to, and Caitlin Foord was lucky in the extreme to avoid a a red card, let alone a yellow, for a stray elbow as the players jostled for a corner in the dying seconds of the first half.

For Chile that injustice was soon multiplied by the way Foord ran rampant in the second half, scoring a hattrick and setting Kerr up for the opening goal.

It was the ultimate manifest of how goals change games, Kerr’s 52nd minute strike jumpstarting her team into the blistering attacking force we know they can be.

Caitlin Foord scored her first hat-trick for her country. Picture: Getty.

If Chilean goalkeeper Christiane Endler was badly at fault for one of the Australian goals, and at least partly culpable for Emily Gielnik’s fourth, it was still impressive to see Stajcic’s side move through the gears to press home their advantage.

How to do that from the start is the question for Stajcic to address in the months ahead before the World Cup.

While his side rarely looked like conceding – not least because of the dominating return of centreback Alanna Kennedy – the opening 45 minutes was too sloppy from a team that can match it with the best.

By the end their ascendancy was complete, Foord interchanging across the front line through an unstoppable mix of power and poise.

At their best that is a description for the whole Matildas side, and no doubt the quintet of goals will suffuse them with confidence.

Alanna Kennedy put in a commanding display in defence.

But Stajcic is too demanding a coach to let the numerical domination disguise the questions that still need answering before the World Cup.

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Originally published as Big win over Chile but sloppy first half will concern Matildas coach Alen Stajcic