Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson has opened up on the circumstances behind Alanna Kennedy's unavailability from Wednesday night's World Cup semi-final after she was a shock omission when the team sheet was released before kick-off.
Just over an hour before the semi final against England was scheduled to start the big team news caught everyone off guard, although it was overshadowed by the decision to start Sam Kerr.
Veteran Clare Polkinghorne was chosen in her central defender position but it was clear there were problems at the back, with England cutting Australia to pieces in a 3-1 victory.
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Post-game, Gustavsson revealed how much time his side had to prepare without Kennedy in the lineup.
"It seems to be one of those tournaments where curve ball after curve ball has been thrown at us, and I think the team has been tremendous at being able to adapt at whatever has been thrown at us," he said.
"At lunch time today we got the notice from the medical team that Alanna was ruled out, we had to make a last minute change. We've done a lot of those this tournament and been really, really good at dealing with it."
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Gustavsson went on to explain her replacement was also still battling to reach full fitness after suffering a foot injury in the lead up to the tournament.
"Clare Polkinghorne is very experienced, mentally has no problem stepping in to play the game, but the challenge for her was she hasn't played a game for a very, very long time (and is) coming back from injury – so it hurt (having) the limited game time and limited training time coming into this tournament," he said.
"And also Sam (Kerr) the limited training time, you could see both were two players that really, really needed to dig deep in the second half. The ones that had a lot of minutes in them were brilliant in the second half, not that Polks and Sam weren't brilliant."
Polkinghorne was eventually replaced in the 81st match at 2-1 down as Gustavsson searched for a goal, bringing on attacking midfielder Emily Van Egmond in the reshuffle.
The coach explained her substitution came down to two reasons.
"We wanted some fresh legs in there, she was tired at that time and we needed a goal," he added.
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