Taiwan defended desperately and, for an hour, successfully, before a moment of quality from Mary Fowler helped set up a 3-0 win in Australia’s last match on home soil in 2023.
Mary Fowler took three touches on the move. The first with the inside of her left boot, the second with the outside of her right. The third was the shot. A blinding, arcing ball carrying 62 minutes of frustration and bulging the back of the net’s far corner.
The camera had been searching for that face all night, even though it should not have been the story. The story should have been that the Matildas were swiftly heading towards a nil-nil draw with a country ranked 27 places below them, in their last match on home soil in 2023.8-0, then pledged to score as many as possible on Wednesday night to ensure the best possible scenario come February’s Olympic qualifying play-offs.
Foord, fresh from her hat-trick and four assists against the Philippines, performed one of those magic turns at the top of the box and drew a diving save from Cheng, who was close to player of the match for one of the more outstanding shifts between the posts from any shot-stopper anywhere.She might even have been named player of the match if not for Fowler, whose swooping drive from deep shocked Australia out of the near-misses and turned them into goals.
Six minutes later, Sam Kerr made the scoreline 2-0, pouncing on a ricochet from some Foord handiwork and poking home the Matildas’ 900th goal in history. That was the 68th minute. By the 76th Tameka Yallop had killed off the game, burying a ball from fellow substitute Amy Sayer. Foord was, once again, involved. At full-time, Australia had racked up 38 shots to Chinese Taipei’s two, with 13 on target.
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