Malaysia v Australia report by FFA

Malaysia 0 - Australia 16


The Qantas Young Matildas have ensured qualification for the semi finals stages of the AFC Women's U-19 Championship following a 16-0 thrashing of host nation Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur overnight.

The victory also sees the team a step closer to qualification for the FIFA U-20 Women's World Championship with the top three teams from the eight nation tournament to represent Asia in Russia later this year. Australia are now strong favourites to top Group B with the final group match against Jordan to be played tomorrow evening.

Australia held a six goal margin by half time and went on to score a further ten unanswered goals as the home team tired in the humid conditions.

Both Jenna Tristram and half time substitute Kylie Ledbrook scored four goals apiece, while Victoria Balomenos secured a hat-trick. There were doubles also for Collette McCallum and Servet Uzunlar with Leah Blayney rounding out the scoring.

The result was the biggest scoreline for the Qantas Young Matildas since the inception of the team in 2002.

Coach Alistair Edwards had made nine changes from the starting line-up which defeated China on Sunday with only McCallum and Blayney backing up.

"Some of the football played today was sheer class," said Edwards. "Having made nine changes from the opening game against China the performance of the team was quite tremendous and all 20 players have now had a taste of the action and they all have done exceptionally well."

"Playing in hot and humid conditions, it takes a lot out of the players, so we made a lot of changes. And I think the result, and indeed the performance, shows that we have strength in depth.

"Having qualified for the semi final our next objective is to finish top of our group. The players' performances over the past two games have made my job of selecting the starting eleven for the next game a very difficult task,"

In the other Group B match played overnight China easily accounted for Jordan with a 9-0 win.

Should Australia maintain top position in the group the likely semi final opponent will be the winner of tomorrow's final Group A match between defending champions Korea Republic and DPR Korea.


written by Football Federation Australia