Clare Polkinghorne to start final Matildas game

Matildas interim boss Tom Sermanni has declared Saturday’s clash with Taiwan to be “a Clare Polkinghorne game,” with the retiring legend set to start her 169th and final game in an Australian shirt.

The recipient of a dedicated send-off game in her hometown of Brisbane last week, Polkinghorne will pull on the boots one final time at Kardinia Park, the stalwart defender having already finished up at club level after helping Kristianstads to a fourth-place finish in the 2024 Damallsvenskan season.

The 35-year-old took part in one final training session at Lakeside Stadium on Friday morning and addressing the media in its aftermath, Sermanni, who gave a 17-year-old Polkinghorne her international debut back in 2006, confirmed that she would be in his starting XI.

“It's a Clare Polkinghorne game,” he smiled. “This is her last training session today and that will be her last time she takes a field as a Matilda.

“So you can guarantee she will start the game.”

Of course, Sermanni likely would have turned to Polkinghorne even without the emotional pull of it being her last game – given that is one of the few remaining natural centrebacks remaining for him to call upon against the Taiwanese.

The coach started Clare Hunt and converted fullback Charli Grant as part of his back-five in a 3-1 win over the Mulan at AAMI Park on Wednesday evening but both have since departed the squad to re-join club side Tottenham Hotspur.

With Steph Catley, Alanna Kennedy, and Courtney Nevin also having left the squad following the conclusion of two games against Brazil last week, it left Polkinghorne as one of the few defenders able to step in, with Winonah Heatley, Matilda Mcnamara, Natasha Prior, and Karly Roestbakken other options.

“Any time that I can play next to Polks I'm very grateful for," Heatley said on Friday.

“She's definitely someone I look up to and I learn from her every day.”

With so many absences – an additional six players beyond the centreback cohort departed after the Brazil games and Chloe Logarzo has been ruled out of Saturday with a concussion – the Matildas will have little choice but to field a youthful, experimental line-up in Saturday’s game. Not that Sermanni is complaining.

“Some players have come in and really stepped up to the level that we're playing at,” he said. “We actually have some talent around that we need to try to utilize a little bit better. So it's been really positive the last few days.

“These kinds of games have a variety of purposes. Obviously, winning is one of the purposes. But also trying to have a look at players or as many players as we can. It's not always possible to do that, but you try.

“What we're trying to do is utilize the squad and give players a chance to actually get on the field at some stage.”

Though Sermanni emphasised that no decision had been made when the possibility was put to him, Chloe Lincoln could come into line for an international debut if the pattern from Brazil the games hold – Mackenzie Arnold starting the first game in that series, as she did against Taiwan, and back-up Teagan Micah, who is among those who have returned to Europe, starting the second.

Kristianstads striker Remy Seimsen also could come into contention up top, albeit the interim boss praised the play of Michelle Heyman and Emily Gielnik as a forward duo in Wednesday’s win and emphasised he’ll want to be aggressive in approach.

“One of the key things I've learned over many years of us being in Asia is that if you play and you conform to the same tempo that the Asian teams like to play at, then they do it better than us,” he said.

“It was really important for us to have a tempo of the game that was high, to have a really aggressive approach. We were quite happy to mix things up and to use our physicality, which is a big asset for us.

“We try to blend all of those things and I think, generally, I thought the players did it really well [in the 3-1 win].

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