{"id":527303,"date":"2026-03-08T19:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/527303\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T19:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:15:10","slug":"womens-asian-cup-2026-steph-catley-floored-by-head-shot-and-ellie-carpenter-rages-at-officials-matildas-vs-south-korea-quick-hits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/527303\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Asian Cup 2026: Steph Catley floored by head shot and Ellie Carpenter rages at officials \u2014 Matildas vs South Korea quick hits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steph Catley gets floored and Ellie Carpenter rages as Alanna Kennedy continues her hot streak.<\/p>\n

Get the latest:<\/p>\n

Listen to ABC Sport<\/a> for coverage of the 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup in Australia, and keep up to date online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here are the quick hits from Matildas vs South Korea at the Women’s Asian Cup in Sydney.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Catley cops a nasty falcon\"Steph<\/p>\n

Steph Catley was struck on the head by the ball as she attempted to defend an early Korean cross. (Getty Images: Brendon Thorne)<\/p>\n

The Matildas’ night started off in somewhat nightmare fashion for Steph Catley after she was floored trying to defend a cross.<\/p>\n

Less than seven minutes into the game, Catley, Australia’s right-back, was tracking back as Korea looked to fling a ball into the box.<\/p>\n

Catley got herself in good position to defend the cross, but unfortunately was left in pain after the ball cannoned into her head.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old required some running repairs from the Matildas medical staff and initially remained on the pitch.<\/p>\n

However, her recovery was short-lived as she called for a substitution in the 18th minute, barely 10 minutes after she copped the brutal blow.<\/p>\n

2. Kennedy continues to be lethal in front of goal<\/p>\n

Alanna Kennedy has spent much of her long career as a central defender and midfielder.<\/p>\n

Her club career began in 2010 and in that time, she’s scored 27 goals in 274 games \u2014 one goal every ten games.<\/p>\n

That stat is matched in her international career. Prior to Sunday night, she’d scored 14 goals in 144 matches \u2014 again, one goal every ten games.<\/p>\n

After scoring a brace against Iran, Kennedy added two more against South Korea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first came when she got on the end of a penalty area scramble to open Australia’s scoring in the first half. The second was the equaliser in the eighth minute of extra time in the second half, when she rifled a loose ball home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, for the Matildas it was too little, too late.<\/p>\n

It may be that Kennedy’s goal-scoring spree is a statistical anomaly, but with four goals in three games, she’s Australia’s top scorer during this Asian Cup and her confidence will be sky-high.<\/p>\n

3. Korea flips script with two goals in three minutes\"Kim<\/p>\n

Kim Shin-Ji scored from the penalty spot after VAR deemed the Matildas to have committed a handball inside the box. (Getty Images: Matt King)<\/p>\n

Australia finished the second half on top but that all changed early in the second half as Korea scored two goals in three minutes.<\/p>\n

The first came via a penalty after the VAR ruled Courtney Nevin had touched a shot with an arm away from her body. A sheepish Nevin looked on knowing she’d made an error, while the referee checked the video and subsequently pointed to the spot.<\/p>\n

The penalty was taken by Kim Shin-Ji who sent Mackenzie Arnold the wrong away to score her second and equalise.<\/p>\n

Three minutes later Kang Chae-Rim received the ball on the right of the penalty area after an extended build-up by South Korea that included several parried shots on goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her low and hard shot, beat Nevin, and found the left-hand corner of the net to the right of a sprawling Arnold.<\/p>\n

4. Carpenter fumes at sideline referee’s goal kicks<\/p>\n

Ellie Carpenter was one of several Matildas players who cut a frustrated figure as the second half wore on.<\/p>\n

Carpenter and a number of her teammates were visibly frustrated at the sideline referee over her refusal to award Australia corner kicks.<\/p>\n

On a number of occasions, when it looked as if the Matildas should have received a corner kick, the sideline referee awarded a goal kick instead.<\/p>\n

Carpenter was seen yelling at the referee on multiple occasions, claiming she didn’t touch the ball when Korea was awarded another goal kick.<\/p>\n

The sideline referees struggled all game, with the Koreans also denied corner kicks at various stages of the night.<\/p>\n

5. Sydney continues to turn up for the ‘Tillies’\"Matildas<\/p>\n

Fans packed out the stands once again as the Matildas grappled with Korea in Sydney. (Getty Images: Ayush Kumar)<\/p>\n

The Sydney crowd always turns up for the Matildas.<\/p>\n

On a Sunday school night, 60,279 punters turned up at the end of a dreary, rainy day to set a new Women’s Asian Cup record crowd. Fortunately, the rain held off during the game.<\/p>\n

That number beat the previous record set in Perth last Sunday when 44,379 people saw Australia begin their campaign with a 1-0 win over the Philippines.<\/p>\n

Another 22,398 watched Australia beat Iran 4\u20130 on the Gold Coast<\/p>\n

The all-time Matildas record crowd was also set in Sydney when 76,798 filled the Olympic Stadium to see the Matildas defeat China 2-0 in a friendly just prior to the Olympics.<\/p>\n

The attendance also beat the 50,276 crowd recorded at the 2015 AFC Men’s Asian Cup group stage match between the Socceroos and Oman. It makes Sunday’s Sydney match the highest-attended Asian Cup group stage match ever staged in Australia in either men’s or women’s competitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steph Catley gets floored and Ellie Carpenter rages as Alanna Kennedy continues her hot streak. Get the latest:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[41432,64,63,132254,177788,28533,44964,73708,44965,5813,85,254234],"class_list":{"0":"post-527303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-asian-cup","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-ellie-carpenter","12":"tag-mackenzie-arnold","13":"tag-mary-fowler","14":"tag-matildas","15":"tag-quick-hits","16":"tag-sam-kerr","17":"tag-south-korea","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-womens-asian-cup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}