Having arrived in Florida from Auckland the night before, the Kiwis took their time shaking the travel out of their legs and fell behind to a Lee Han-Woon goal in the 10th minute.
“The first five or 10 minutes showed that we’d only been here 18 hours and they’d been here eight days,” coach Dave Edmondson says. “It was quite helter skelter and it took us a while to settle down.
“We had just done that when we got caught on the wrong side defensively. But the girls didn’t panic, they started playing and got themselves into the game. We had some really good spells in possession.”
New Zealand’s best chance came towards the end of the final period of 30 minutes with Korea’s goalkeeper producing a sharp double save to deny Brittany Dudley-Smith and then Stephanie Skilton capping a scything run down the left flank with a curling shot that just shaved the top of the crossbar.
Played over three 30-minute periods, the game was a chance for Edmondson to give his entire squad a run in their first international outside Oceania, and he was encouraged by what he saw, little more than a week out from the Young Ferns’ tournament opener on September 6.
“It was very promising, not just from the closeness of the result after the travel but with the way we played. We didn’t panic, we kept the ball, played in the right places, played out under pressure quite a few times and did very well.”
The Young Football Ferns play Ireland on Wednesday morning (NZT) in their final warm-up before flying to Trinidad and Tobago where they face Venezuela, Spain and Japan in Group C of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup.
New Zealand’s matches at the tournament will be shown live on Sky Sport.
New Zealand 0 Korea Republic 1 (LEE Han-Woon 10’)
New Zealand: 1-Chloe-May GEURTS (GK / 20-Jess REDDAWAY 31 / 21-Lily ALFELD 61), 2-Rachel HEAD, 3-Tessa MCPHERSON, 4-Olivia CHANCE (13-Megan LEE 61), 6-Evie MILLYNN (16-Jessie MATHEWS 45), 7-Holly PATTERSON (12-Stephanie SKILTON 61), 8-Kate LOYE (11-Grace PARKINSON 61), 10-Hannah WONG (5-Brittany DUDLEY-SMITH 61), 14-Katie BOWEN (Captain/ 15-Kate CARLTON 61), 17-Sivitha BOYCE (19-Michelle WINDSOR 61), 18-Rebecca BURROWS (9-Hannah CARLSEN 38).
Head Coach: Dave Edmondson
Story courtesy of NZF Media.
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