Mary Fowler prepared for her second in World Cup highlight

It is no simple job being labelled Sam Kerr’s successor – particularly when the Matildas celebrity remains to be proper there beside you on the pitch.

However 20-year-old Mary Fowler handles that title and expectation in the identical method she glides her method throughout the soccer area – with poise, grace and a quiet confidence.

“I do know I am younger, I’ve thought concerning the future, however most of my headspace is simply on what’s taking place proper now,” Fowler informed AAP.

“As a result of I really feel like I am at some extent the place I can convey rather a lot to the group proper now.

“Slightly than being the place I used to be at 4 years in the past, the place it was, ‘I am right here however I am not fairly prepared for it’.”

In 2019, Fowler was on monitor to develop into a teenage World Cup debutant in France earlier than a hamstring damage dominated her out of that event’s early levels.

Then, with Australia trailing Norway 1-0 within the closing levels of the spherical of 16, Fowler was about to earn her first minutes.

As an alternative, Elise Kellond-Knight scored an Olimpico and Fowler put her substitute bib again on as coach Ante Milicic as an alternative turned to Amy Harrison.

“I’ll be sincere, I do not even do not forget that,” Fowler stated with fun.

“Simply being there and with the ability to be a part of that complete event at such a younger age, it reveals you what is on the market.

“It motivated me much more that I did not play.

“I used to be, ‘Oh I simply wish to be on the market. I wish to assist the group, I would like to have the ability to play in entrance of this crowd’. If it goes to penalties, I wish to be somebody that folks look to and are like, ‘You’re taking one’.”

Two years later, Fowler scored an important aim in Australia’s memorable Olympic quarter-final win over Nice Britain.

“It undoubtedly gave me an enormous confidence enhance, with the ability to go on the sphere and play a component in such an vital stage of the event,” she stated.

Fowler, who recovered from a fractured again to make the squad, seems a participant constructed for the massive stage.

Two years in the past, star striker Kerr informed AAP the then-teenager was the Matildas’ “finest finisher on each ft”.

Fellow ahead Caitlin Foord says Fowler “can change the sport”.

On Friday night time, after teeing up Fowler for a superbly timed winner in opposition to France, teammate Hayley Raso famous, “If you discover Mary within the field, you recognize she’ll rating”.

Whereas the abilities aren’t doubtful, it is Fowler’s maturity that basically stands out.

“She’s so sturdy, and so good and technical,” fellow Matilda Steph Catley informed AAP.

“She’s a participant that we have been actually crying out for and she or he simply arrived on the proper time.”

Thursday’s Girls’s World Cup opener in opposition to Eire at Stadium Australia will flip a recent highlight on Fowler.

The attacker was eligible to play for Eire, the place her father Kevin hails from, however in the end dedicated to the Matildas.