“We didn’t start well. That is the honest truth” says Montemurro following England defeat | OneFootball

Joe Montemurro was critical of his Australia side’s start to their game against England, in which they lost 3-0 at Pride Park and were reduced to 10 players early on.

Alanna Kennedy was dismissed in the 18th minute, and England were 2-0 up by half-time.

The Matildas boss argued that this start to the game was part of what killed his side off, and said: “We didn’t start well. That is the honest truth.

“There are opportunities for us to put into practice some other ideas,” he continued. “What better way to simulate a situation, in a tournament, when you’re 10 players down and you’ve got to make sure you are going to get something out of the game. In the second half, we made a few adjustments, and limited the opportunities in the box for England. But they are a world class side, they started well, even before the sending off. We take it as a massive learning curve for us.”

His and his team’s, biggest learning out of the game was: “Simulating a situation where you go a player down very early.”

He added: “You have to find another level of discipline without the ball. You need to understand that you have to give away certain qualities that are attributes that certain players have. You can’t put them in practice, you have to do other things, and we found out some good ideas, in terms of profiles of players, what they can do in these situations. For us, we take a lot of important information away from this game. It’s disappointing that we didn’t get the chance to do what we wanted with the ball.”

Ellie Carpenter reacted to the game as well.

“Obviously very disappointed,” she said. “You never want to go down a player. But as a group, we reacted well. In the second half, we were defensively better. A credit to the group, we always fight till the end, that is the Aussie spirit. But like I said, going down that early, is never nice, disappointed with that, and the result. It’s one we will probably want to forget.

“It’s hard to come back from that [being a player down]. Especially so early. It’s really hard to create opportunities. But I do think we did have some chances, half chances, to get in behind, but it’s one of the hardest things in a game of football, and against England, a world-class team,” she added.

Montemurro has only been in charge since June, but Carpenter acknowledged that a squad which knows each other so well should be able to remain cohesive.

“We had a new coach come in quite late, but as a group, we have been together, the core of us, for so many years. We have been through many major tournaments together. We know we only have two games left [to prepare for the Asian Cup], but most of us play over in Europe, at big clubs, and hopefully we can continue that form into next year in March. But tonight was a great opportunity for us. A great learning opportunity. How do we react from going a player down? I think it’s important for us to have these tests now, before the Asian Cup, anything can happen in those games as well. So this is a great learning opportunity for our group, and how we come together and fix these issues. Anything can happen in football.”