''I thought she did admirably" - Sermanni praises debutant in Matildas loss - video Dailymotion

Matildas' Head Coach Tom Sermanni praised debutant Winonah Heatley after the Matildas' 3-1 loss to Brazil. Heatley played 72 minutes in the match.

Transcript

00:00And as I said, I'm very cautious what I say here in the sense that I don't think the referee necessarily determined the outcome of the game,

00:08but she certainly determined how the game was played.

00:11And with her lack of control and allowing Brazil to basically rule it out,

00:20it changed the dynamic of the game and made it a little bit more difficult for us.

00:24So that certainly had, I think, an impact.

00:28Obviously, absences and injuries have caused you to make quite a few changes in that midfield.

00:33Winona Heatley got her first start. How do you think she played?

00:36I thought she did admirably, to be perfectly honest.

00:39I mean, she's come in late into the camp and she's mainly a centre-back,

00:47but we needed to have more of a physical strength in midfield,

00:53more of a defensive presence with the team that we had.

00:56And, you know, I thought she did ever so well.

01:00I think she ran out of legs a little bit, which is to be expected.

01:05A couple of times, maybe the tenth of the game, I don't know.

01:08But I think her run rate, I think the things that she brought down and the balls that she won,

01:15I thought she handled herself very, very well.