HAIL MARY DAY FOLLOWS TIGER’S LEAD
Cairns teen waltzes into Matildas squad LYNCH UNLIKELY TO STAY: DEW
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AUSTRALIAN teenage football sensation Mary Fowler is our newest Matilda but it all started in Cairns, where she first laced up her boots in the FNQ Football competition.
The Leichhardt junior was yesterday added to the 20player squad selected to defend Australia’s Tournament of Nations crown in the USA, which starts later this month.
Fresh from scoring 10 goals in six games for the Young Matildas at the AFF Women’s Championship – including a brace in the 3-2 loss to Thailand in the final – Fowler will join the Australian
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set-up in America ahead of their friendly clashes with Brazil, the US and Japan.
Fowler grew up at Trinity Beach, before she and her family – parents Kevin and Nido, and siblings Quivi, Ciara, Louise and Seamus – moved to the Netherlands in 2015.
They returned to Australia late last year and the former Holy Cross school student made her debut for the Young Matildas in March against Thailand.
“Mary sees it as a great honour to play for the national team,” her father told the Cairns Post.
“She’s not really nervous. She plays NPL1 in Sydney (for the Bankstown Lions) and there are some Matildas in the league who she plays with and against.
“She is more excited than nervous. She has learned to think more of her ability than her age.
“Ciara and Mary were training with senior women’s teams in Holland when they were 13 and 14. She feels comfortable and confident about it all and sees this as an opportunity to improve herself.”
Matildas coach Alen Stajcic, who says he has been tracking Fowler’s progress for 12 months, rates the teenager as the most talented prospect he’s seen in women’s football.