Matildas in Perth: Tony Gustavsson praises one of the Matildas’ best performances after 8-0 win

Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson says Perth was treated to one of the best attacking performances he has witnessed during his tenure after their 8-0 thrashing of The Philippines. Hat-tricks to Sam Kerr and Caitlin Foord either side of Mary Fowler’s opener and Clare Wheeler’s closer put The Philippines to the sword in emphatic fashion. The Philippines are ranked inside the top 40 and beat New Zealand at this year’s Women’s World Cup, but were left chasing shadows for most of the game as Australia ripped through their defence time and time again. When asked post-game whether this was the best he had seen his side play from an attacking sense, Gustavsson said the only other game which he could recall during his time as Matildas coach was the first-half destruction of Canada in their final World Cup group game. “Now when I’m emotional, it’s easy to say yes - maybe Canada but in a different way. “Maybe not in the combination and attacking game but tactically as an execution is, I think the first half against Canada is up there as well. “But attacking-wise, this was definitely one of the best.” Despite The Philippines sitting deep, the Matildas were able to carve up their opponents with ease and after saying his side needed to learn to play through deep-lying defensive blocks before the qualifying campaign, Gustavsson said Sunday represented a significant step forward. “Last time we played them, it was 0-0 at halftime and it took a corner to open them up. This time we opened them up in a completely different way,” he said. “It was a little bit of a crossroad moment for this team to be honest, in terms of what we want to be about and how we want to be the top team in the world and maybe play like favorites and be able to play parked buses and we proved today that we have taken massive steps.” Kerr and Foord got hat-tricks, but it was the latter who was named player of the game after she also grabbed four assists and Gustavsson said switching her with Mary Fowler so Foord played central and Fowler played on the left worked a treat. “Mary has been phenomenal wide for Manchester City, we tested it last game and we felt that Steph (Catley) and her find similar chemistry as Caitlin and Steph did,” he said. “So we said let’s try it and I had high hopes, but maybe not this high hopes. Caitlin was phenomenal.” Gustavsson stressed however, with the game against Chinese Taipei on Wednesday night on the horizon, the job was not yet done. “I said it straight away in the circle, that they should be extremely proud about the performance but also that they need to be extremely professional when it comes to recovery because this is also a rehearsal,” he said. “If you want to go all the way to the Olympics, this is how tight the games will be in an Olympics - only 48 hours to recover and then another game comes up. “So we need to be extremely professional, physical and mental recovery is key now and then I’m probably going to have some really in-depth and tough discussions with our tech staff in how we line up the team on Wednesday because there’s a lot of players that deserve to start that game.”