Matildas star Mary Fowler out of second World Cup clash with concussion

Already without Sam Kerr, the Matildas have copped a massive injury blow ahead of their World Cup clash with Nigeria.

Mary Fowler won’t play for the Matildas against Nigeria. Picture: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson has defended his choice of a “high-intensity” training session that has cost Australia the services of two more players, including young attacking star Mary Fowler, for Thursday night’s FIFA Women’s World Cup clash against Nigeria in Brisbane.

The Matildas’ already compromised forward stocks suffered a further blow when Fowler was concussed at Tuesday’s behind-closed-doors session.

Veteran utility player Aivi Luik also fell victim to concussion during the same training scrimmage.

However, with captain and star striker Sam Kerr already sidelined indefinitely with a calf injury, and another of the squad’s forwards in Kyah Simon having carried a knee injury into the tournament and unavailable, Fowler’s misfortune particularly hurts the Australians.

“I totally understand if you didn’t see the training, if I were you I would say ‘what the heck is happening at training?’” Gustavsson said.

“Two concussions in one training (session) two days out from the game, but it was a completely normal training (session).

“Two days out, you always have a high intensity medium-sized game and play eight-v-eight at high intensity.

“Everything was good. We were unlucky, unfortunately, with two head knocks.

“We don’t want to go into details because we don’t repeat those things that happen at training but … we didn’t do anything different than normal, and we were a bit unlucky this time, but the session was very good.

“Once again the players showed when that happened … they just kept going and focused, and new players stepped into those roles.

“The player are on a mission, and focused what they can control, so credit to the players at yesterday’s training how they responded to it.”

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📰 SQUAD UPDATE: Mary Fowler and Aivi Luik will be unavailable for Thursday night’s clash with Nigeria with both players having been ruled out after sustaining mild concussions during training. #Matildas#FIFAWWC#TilitsDone

— CommBank Matildas (@TheMatildas) July 26, 2023

The Matildas trained at Brisbane’s Perry Park on Wednesday morning, with Kerr, Fowler and Simon all restricted to walking laps of the field.

Gustavsson was also forced to defend his decision to name the injured Simon in his squad, a gamble that has seemingly backfired with both Kerr and Fowler now also sidelined.

“I’m never going to never regret picking Kyah,” the Matildas coach said.

“I picked for her for different reasons. We knew she was going to have limited minutes but her game-changing quality was what we picked her for, and what she showed in training in the last couple of weeks before (the squad’s) selection was amazing.

“We knew it was a risk, but you never know what it’s going to be like.

“The other thing is what she contributes to the group in the locker room and off the pitch with her experience and her personality, but also coming into (games) in big pressure moments. “She’s come up big in big games before. I’m never going to regret that She still contributes to us.”

Caitlin Foord is set to lead the Matildas’ attack against the Nigerians, with the versatile Tameka Yallop and Alex Chidiac two of the options to replace Fowler upfront.

However, Gustavsson said Yallop, who injured her thigh against France in a friendly less than two weeks ago, would play “limited minutes”.

“Sometimes you are unlucky and you need to deal with the cards you’re handed, and we’re ready to play those cards,” he said.

“We have a lot of attacking options still in the roster, but this team has also showed that we are very adaptable, so we might have a different profile of a player but we’re still going to have the same identity. We might have a different formation, but we’re still going to have the same identity.

“We’ve seen that time over time in the last two or three games where we’ve played almost four to five different formations, and 16 different players against France, but we still have the same identity.”

The Matildas will guarantee themselves a spot in the tournament’s knockout stages with a Group B game to spare with a win over the Nigerians.