Grafton Matilda proud for ‘her’ team
By Tim Howard
Once a Matilda, always a Matilda. That’s how Grafton’s Jo Powell has felt as she has watched the current Australian women’s soccer team in its first two games in the 2023 World Cup.
The Grafton business woman, who with wife Cash Powell, owns Jetts Fitness Centre, wore the Green and Gold for the Matildas between 1996 and 2000 in an era when women’s football was finding its way as an international sport.
Advertisements
The Powells arrived in Brisbane ahead of the game against Nigeria and to their delight found they were booked into the same hotel as the Matildas
“We were checking and they were coming through the front door,” Powell said.
“They jumped in a lift. We said ‘ok you guys go’ and they said, ‘no, jump in’. So we got to ride in the lift with the team.”
Powell said the game against Nigeria the Matildas lost 3-2 could easily have gone the other way if they had converted even half their chances.
“Australia were ahead in just about every stat,” Powell said. “Corners, free kicks, shots on goal, time in possession.
“You name it, they were ahead, but when the time came, in front of goal, they couldn’t pop it in.”
Powell said while the Matildas missed the “next level” goal awareness of Sam Kerr, other players, like Mary Fowler, was another who was missed.
“She played a very dominant role in their first game against Ireland,” she said.
Grafton’s Jo Powell is a proud member of the Matildas Alumni. She believes the players now have reached their height on the shoulders of the players who went before.
She said it had only been freak training accidents that caused Fowler and another player to miss the game.
“The thing to take from that is these girls are giving everything in their training sessions because the squads get picked every time they train for a game,” she said.
“The coach doesn’t come up at the end of a game and say ‘ok you’re going to play next game.
“He will have rough idea of the squad he wants and then it’s what the girls put out there and who’s switched on.
“It’s just an unfortunate turn of events that happened one after the other for them.”
Powell took an upbeat view of the Matilda’s performances ahead of the must-win game against Canada on Monday.
“A 3-2 loss and a 1-0 win over Ireland, considering they’re not at full strength and they’re missing multiple key components of their strike force, it means the depth of Australia is quite solid.”
Powell was confident the Matildas would bounced back against Canada, coincidentally the team Powell made her debut against at the end of last century.
The amount of love and support from the Matildas from former players and the public in general has transformed the game says Grafton former Matilda, Jo Powell.
She said the pressures on players in international sport were something most people could not comprehend.
“Sometimes things fall your way, sometimes they don’t, so coming off a loss I think they’re going to be pumped and I think we’ll see a different squad run out,” she said.
Despite the differences in opportunities for modern players, Powell felt no envy towards modern players, just an immense feeling of pride that she was one of players that helped them get there.
“All they players that run out on the pitch for the World Cup have got there standing on the shoulders of the players that went before them,” Powell said.
“The only thing I miss is that they get the chance to run around out there. Ever since we took over the gym I’ve had to stop playing because of the risk of injury.”
She never had the chance to run onto the ground in front of 76,000 or 47,000 as has been the case in the Matildas’ two games so far, but the experience of being in those crowds has been “something else”.
“For these guys they’re under public scrutiny all the time,” she said. “Everybody’s got an opinion on what they should be doing, how they should be doing it.
“That was kind of a blessing for us. We didn’t have that many people that were interested.
“But on the same token, it was kind of disappointing for us because we’ve both been on the same journey.
“We put our heart and soul into it. And essentially at that time we were playing for everybody, but nobody really cared.
“It’s completely different now. It’s amazing.”
“I’ve never been blown away with the vibe and electricity that was in the ground. It was amazing.”
Powell said former and current Matildas got together and listened to the experiences of former players, including the first capped Matilda, Julie Dolan.
“People ask her would you rather play now and she said, ‘no, somebody had to pave the way and we did the hard yards.
“She said, I was in a coffee shop the other day and this 35-year-old tradie saw her Matilda’s scarf draped around her neck and yelled out ‘go the Tillies’.
“He then lurched into who all the players were. He knew who all the girls were.
“She said to see a 35-year-old bloke that’s a tradie, who can rattle off all the names of the girls and the team and know everything about it is amazing.”
Powell said that had been the biggest transformation, the acceptance of women’s sport in Australia.
“I think about a year ago I was flicking through the channels on TV one weekend and got women’s AFL, women’s cricket, women’s rugby and soccer.
“I thought this was amazing and I got a little bit emotional about it.”
The transition to acceptance is something Powell has lived through.
Grafton’s Jo Powell played for the Matildas between 1996 and 2000 and was at the ground in Brisbane for the game against Nigeria last week.
When she started playing she played in boys teams and her club had to gain a dispensation from the football governing body.
“We had to inform the opposition team there was a girl playing in our team,” she said.
“We didn’t have to nominate which player it was and I had short hair, so I didn’t stand out.”
But it led to some bizarre situations.
“I tackled a player in an under-11s game and hurt him, quite badly as it turned out,” Powell said.
“When their coach learnt it had been a girl who tackled him, he made him stay on the field and keep playing.
“It was quite bad too. I think he might have had a broken leg.”
She said the crowds that now attend women’s sport across the board show those days are long gone.
She pointed to recent advertisement where through some digital wizardry the faces of male footballers had been placed on the bodies of women players doing amazing things on the field.
“Everybody thought they were watching the males and seeing the crowd’s reaction, but at the end of the ad, you were saying, ‘wow, they were all women’,” she said.
She said the big take out was the way the Matildas were a role model for young girls.
“It’s something that we picked up at one of the sports events we went to. ‘If you can’t see it, you can’t be it.
“I was talking to a young girl the other day who was waiting for the Matildas to get autographs.
“She’s only been playing soccer for a year and a half. She was a convert from gymnastics, but she saw a game of soccer and that’s what she wants to do now.”
For more sports news, click here.