Making up for lost time

It’s been a World Cup dominated by romance, unbridled nationalistic pride and storylines. A home FIFA World Cup is a once in a lifetime experience, for both the privileged few able to step onto the pitch, as well as the thousands packed into stadiums and live sites around the country, riding every tackle, save and shot on target on this Matildas campaign.

It’s a pressure cooker, a cauldron, a third cooking vessel I can’t think of, an environment so intense that only the few strong enough to bear the massive pressure of a nation are able to navigate.

It’s an environment for the stars to shine at their brightest, to further their legacies and cement their standing among the greats of Australian football. Think of Sam Kerr and Caitlin Foord, of Steph Catley and Katrina Gorry.

It’s an environment for the next generation to make a name for themselves, to advertise their skills to a global audience, to put themselves in the shop window. For Australia’s rising stars like Mary Fowler, who is demanding more minutes at Manchester City, or Kyra Cooney-Cross, whose performances have England’s biggest clubs like Chelsea and Arsenal interested in her services.

It’s an environment for redemption arcs and comeback tales. For Hayley Raso to endear herself to a nation after a rough Olympics campaign, for Ellie Carpenter to announce her re-arrival from a devastating knee injury.

It’s an environment that has claimed countless souls, a titanic endeavour so few can conquer.

That’s what makes Clare Hunt’s performances at the World Cup nothing short of outstanding.

In a team littered with household names and Matildas stalwarts, the under-the-radar Hunt can be easy to miss. Coming off a stellar season with the Western Sydney Wanderers, where she was named in the PFA A-League Women’s team of the season, she spent time training with WSL (Women’s Super League, the female equivalent of the Premier League) side Everton.

Hunt has impressed with every step she’s taken, not just in this tournament campaign but dating back to her domestic season for the Wanderers, which led to her Matildas debut against the Czech Republic in a Cup of Nations fixture in Gosford in March, a match attended by just over 7,700 fans.

Quite a monumental rise to the 75,000 Hunt ran out in front of on Monday night at a jam packed Stadium Australia in the biggest game of not only her career, but maybe the Matildas program to date, a knockout World Cup game on home soil, a home stadium heaving, plastered in green and gold, live sites ablaze across the nation with flares and hope.

It doesn’t get much bigger than that, but Hunt, now a veteran of 10 caps for the national side, treated it like a Sunday afternoon kickabout on her family’s farm in Grenfell in country NSW.

Other players got the plaudits and the lavish praise for what was a smothering Matildas performance. Caitlin Foord was electric down the left, Mary Fowler’s left boot magical and instrumental in setting up both goals, Kyra Cooney-Cross and Katrina Gorry bossing the midfield, leaving the Danes with nowhere to run.

A flamboyant and bombastic attack is nothing without a strong last line at the back. It allows attackers to freewheel without thought, to play off instinct and intuition, knowing there’s a safety net back there.

It’s no good scoring four goals if you concede five (spoiler alert).

For that, Hunt deserves her flowers, a composed and assured performance at the back yet again for the 24-year old, validating the faith placed in her by Tony Gustavsson, a relative unknown at the start of the year now an invaluable part of the Matildas setup.

Her positioning was exemplary. When Denmark resorted to route one football, Hunt was there, putting a head on it, marshalling a defence of players far more experienced than her on a national stage, her tandem with Alanna Kennedy frustrating Pernille Harder, stymieing the star Danish striker at every turn, reducing her glimpses at goal to mere whimpers.

It was almost as if she’d been given the Danish playbook pregame, such was her domineering presence beating the Danes to the spot, like she was calling out the Danish movements before they themselves knew what they were going to do.

Against a team like Denmark, a taller team who present a legitimate threat from set pieces, Hunt’s height and authority at the back was crucial in repelling countless Danish corners, free kicks and long throw ins. Her will and strength in crowded and chaotic situations especially classy as the Danes tried to overload the box and make like difficult for Mackenzie Arnold.

It’s been a tough road to here for Hunt. Injuries robbing her of large swathes of her career to date, including a broken arm, shoulder problems and the dreaded torn ACL. But years honing her craft, hours spent locked in a car traversing the countryside to trainings and trials have developed a patience and steely resolve that will hold her in good stead.

Hunt’s emergence comes at the perfect time for an ageing Matildas defence looking for a replenishment. Her performances, laden with reassurance and poise, calm the heart of a nation’s defence for the next ten years.

Australia march on now into the World Cup quarter finals, to play the winner of France vs. Morocco, and it still isn’t without a good old selection headache for Gustavsson.

The attack, which looked myopic and morose in games against Ireland and Nigeria, has roared to life in back to back demolitions of Canada and Denmark, off the back of Foord, Fowler and Raso. The attack has been humming without Sam Kerr, the Chelsea star making her long awaited return from an unfortunate calf strain in the final stages of the Denmark win.

The question will now be asked whether Gustavsson calls upon his talisman from the start, presumably in place of Emily Van Egmond, or whether he sticks with what has been working so well up to this point.

But while such dilemmas exist further forward, you can be sure of one thing. The defence isn’t going anywhere. Clare Hunt’s rise has seen to that. Australia’s most capped player, Clare Polkinghorne, is rooted to the bench, watching her protege take centre stage and do it with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of surety.

The future is in safe hands.