Canada 2

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Canada 2

Canada Edge Much-Improved Ferns

by Jeremy Ruane

Canada overcame a much-improved Football Ferns 1-0 at Montreal's Stade Saputo on October 26, the Olympic champions encountering a team which had devoted plenty of time since Sunday's 5-1 thrashing to improving their pressing of their opponents.

That was evident from Mexican referee Diana Perez's first whistle, with the team in white denying their red-clad opponents space all over the park, the attacking trio of Jacqui Hand, Gabrielle Rennie and Olivia Chance leading by example as New Zealand's first line of defence, something which those being them were quick to support, Ria Percival in particular - she had a massive game.

The first time there was a lapse in this approach, however, Canada pounced, and opened the scoring as a result. Daisy Cleverley afforded Quinn a couple of yards of space, which was all she needed to change the point of attack and bring Jessie Fleming into play.

She surged forward before slipping a pass into the stride of Janine Beckie, whose low drive was parried by Anna Leat, who was given the nod in goal for this game. Before she had a chance to recover the sphere, her West Ham United team-mate, Adriana Leon, pounced to tuck home the game's opening goal in the sixteenth minute.

The crestfallen look on the face of Meikayla Moore as the ball rolled over the line spoke volumes, so well had the Football Ferns begun proceedings. But the Olympic champions had punished their opponents' first lapse, and five minutes later could have benefitted from a penalty after the ball struck the arm of Moore's prone figure in the thick of a goalmouth scramble.

Much to the Football Ferns' relief, referee Perez deemed it a case of ball to hand rather than deliberate handball, but Canada continued to make in-roads down the left, with Catherine Bott finding Leon quite the handful to deal with, especially with Quinn and the overlapping Gabrielle Carle up in support.

It was from a Carle cross that Beckie went close to doubling Canada's lead just after the half-hour mark - her mistimed leap on the far post saw her descending as the ball was at the apex of its delivery. But by this time, the Football Ferns could well have been on level terms.

The strongly-performed Bott - when she harnesses her temperament for the greater good, as in this match, she is a far more effective player - presented possession to Percival some forty yards out from goal in the 26th minute.

New Zealand' most capped player surged forward before, from thirty yards, unleashing a vicious angled dipping drive which Canadian goalkeeper Stephanie Labbe was forced to tip over the bar as the ball threatened to drop under it.

Four minutes later, Football Ferns captain Ali Riley led the Canadian rearguard a merry dance near the left-hand corner flag before engineering the space from which to deliver a cross which picked out the head of Hand. She was unable to direct the ball on target from near the penalty spot.

Rennie had been a lively force up front, and gave Canadian defender Shalina Zadorsky plenty of cause for concern during her time on the park, which was surprisingly curtailed five minutes before

half-time in favour of Rosie White's entry to the fray, a highlight the substitute looked to mark in style within three minutes via a long-range drive, which troubled Labbe little.

The Canadians enjoyed the better of the early stages of the second spell, bolstered by fresh legs after making four changes just after half-time. One of the newcomers, Jayde Riviere, picked out Leon in the 56th minute with a lofted pass which invited the goalscorer to double her tally with an acrobatic volley, one which was matched by Leat's flying save to her right.

An arm wrestle was now taking shape, with the Football Ferns solid in defence, where both Moore and Katie Bowen produced accomplished displays, save for the odd hair-raising moment - a 64th minute back-pass which forced Leat into a hurried clearance, for instance.

The Canadians responded to this by unleashing the exciting young talent that is Jordyn Huitema upon proceedings, and in the 76th minute, she spurned a glorious chance to double the home team's lead.

Picked out by a lofted clearance, she found herself through on goal with the miles-out-of-position Leat to beat. Huitema opted for the early shot, and she duly hit it over the head of the stranded goalkeeper, only to look on in dismay as it drifted past the gaping goal.

Certain aspects of the Football Ferns' game - inaccurate passing, for instance - were by now increasing in their frequency, so fresh legs and minds were introduced, in the forms of Hannah Blake, Emma Rolston and Ava Collins throughout the final twenty minutes, in an effort to snare a late equaliser.

It was the host nation which went closest to scoring first, though, substitute Vanessa Gilles heading a Leon corner to the back post narrowly over the goalframe twelve minutes from time, a miss to which Blake responded with a rising twenty yard drive eight minutes later, upon receipt of further handiwork from Bott. This effort, too, was narrowly astray.

Riley was left in a heap on halfway in the dying minutes after being crudely felled by Kadeisha Buchanan, to which Betsy Hassett and Collins responded with penetrating runs but no end product - how New Zealand needs to quickly unearth a goalscorer of the calibre of Amber Hearn to give their attack much-needed venom!

Leon's early goal proved the difference between the sides on this occasion, however, but the Football Ferns will take great heart from a much improved showing in this second encounter between the teams, Jitka Klimkova's first matches in charge excellent markers against which to judge the team's progress on the road to the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup Finals.

Canada: Labbe (McLeod, 47); Beckie (Scott, 73), Buchanan (booked, 88), Zadorsky (Gilles, 47), Schmidt (Riviere, 47); Fleming, Carle, Quinn; Rose (Huitema, 57), Sinclair (Viens, 47), Leon

Football Ferns: Leat; Bott, Moore, Bowen, Riley; Cleverley (Rolston, 78), Percival, Hassett; Hand (Blake, 69), Rennie (White, 40), Chance (Collins, 80)

Referee: Diana Perez (Mexico)

Football Ferns build-up