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Matildas cop 7-0 loss from the Newcastle Jets U/15’s boys team

Lisa De Vanna is back for Canberra United in the W-League semis.
Editor
26th May, 2016
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Yes, you read that correctly.

With a two-match series against the New Zealand women’s national side coming up, the Matildas hosted the Newcastle Jets’ developmental Under-15s boy’s side in Sydney on Wednesday night.

The warm-up fixture didn’t exactly go to plan for the women in gold though, letting in a mammoth seven goals to zip in a dominant display by the school kids.

The Matildas are deep in the midst of Olympic preparation, where they are considered serious medal contenders for Rio, and for good reason; they’re currently ranked number five in the world.

Despite containing a near full-strength squad, the Matildas were still missing a few key players, namely star striker Kyah Simon, which would explain the 0 in 7-0.

Couple that together with the ‘training run’ style of play coach Alen Stajcic was going for with frequent player rotation and position switching, and you have a fairly excusable lack of cohesion on the park from the girls.

After the game, a lot of questions were raised about certain aspects of women’s football.

Assistant coach Gary van Egmond didn’t take kindly to one particular probing question following the loss, relating to, you guessed it, the equality of men and women in sport.

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“It’s all relative,” says van Egmond. “It’s no different from a female tennis player or a female swimmer against a 15- or 16-year-old boy who’s maturing and starting to develop physically.”

This is driven home by the fact the last time the Matildas played an Under-16’s aged boys side, they drew 2-all. It’s a different kettle of fish.

The Matildas, and other women’s teams around the world, frequently look to developing boys sides for warm-ups and practice matches. With such shallow depth in women’s football, particularly in Asia and Australia, it’s difficult to find quality opposition to tackle, and it helps the A-League in terms of the growth and exposure for their young hopefuls.

That’s not to mention the fact that a number of the gentlemen they were playing were over the under 15 age threshold of the team – it was a practice affair.

Even though his side has a good number of excuses, van Egmond was still humble towards his opposition.

“To be honest, we didn’t expect that,” he told the Huffington Post Australia.

“But the Jets boys were very good. All credit to them. They moved the ball around very well and were excellent on the night.”

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No doubt, the result will stoke the confidence of the aspiring young men.

So while the result certainly doesn’t look great, it can be, and should be, taken with a grain of salt.

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