Matildas left-back Steph Catley woke up with a feeling she would take a penalty against Ireland.

On Thursday night, the stand-in captain, deputising for the injured Sam Kerr with both the armband and penalty duties, delivered.

The Matildas were unsettled and nervous when Marissa Sheva bowled over Hayley Raso inside the penalty box at Stadium Australia.

In the 52nd minute, Catley stepped up, took a breath then buried it in the top corner, delivering Australia’s first goal in its home Women’s World Cup and what was ultimately the winner in a scrappy 1-0 victory.

“I knew I was on pens (penalties) tonight and I am sort of second in line to take pens if Sam ever, for whatever reason, doesn’t want to take it,” Catley said.

“But obviously with her out tonight I did know I was gonna take the pen. But I had a feeling I was gonna get one – I don’t know why.

“When I woke up this morning I was like, ‘I feel like I’m gonna take a pen today.’

“But when it happened, I just tried to relax. I like taking set pieces.

“I just picked a spot, kept thinking about it, took a deep breath and then just hit it where I wanted to hit it and luckily it went in.”

Catley, 29, was the only Australian to convert their spot-kick in the 2019 penalty shootout defeat to Norway in the round of 16.

Her first World Cup goal that counted clearly meant that bit more.

It was the same end of Stadium Australia where John Aloisi scored his spot-kick against Uruguay in 2005 that sent the Socceroos to their first World Cup since 1974.

The feat also came in front of a record Matildas crowd of 75,784 fans.

“We’ve had a lot of experience playing at home and we love playing in front of a home crowd, but we’ve never played to this type of occasion before,” Catley said.

“The build up was incredible. As female footballers, we’ve never felt or seen anything like it.

“There was a lot of talk about just playing football, playing our game, relaxing into it and accepting that there was going to be sloppy moments, there was going to be nerves.

“When that happened in the game, because we were expecting it, we were fine, we just recovered, kicked on and got the job done.”

Matildas ready to tackle time without Kerr

The Matildas will be without inspirational captain and striker Sam Kerr for at least another game but Catley said she could still be influential.

The stand-in skipper said the players had focused on delivering for Kerr.

“It was tough. It was probably one of the most heartbreaking moments of my career, to be fair,” Catley said.

“Sam’s one of the best players in the world. She’s our spiritual leader. She means so much to this team.

“To have her go down a day before a moment like this was pretty awful, but as a team, it added something to us, it added a little bit of extra fire.

“Everyone looked at it and said, ‘well, I’ve got to step up now because we don’t have Sam’. We spoke about that and we did that really well.”

Catley insisted Kerr, Australia’s all-time leading scorer with 63 goals in 121 games, would still play a crucial role while injured.

“Sam’s still around – she’s still got her effect on the team,” she said.

“She’s in every meeting. She’s in there at half-time talking to everyone, she’s doing the pre-game talk and she’s still with us.

“We’ll do everything we can to get as far as we can and then hopefully we see Sam Kerr later on.

“For as long as maybe she misses, she’s still got a role. She’s massive for us and she’s so, so important.

“She’s our spiritual leader and whatever role she plays in the next however long will be massive.”

Young gun Mary Fowler played alongside Caitlin Foord in attack in Kerr’s absence.

“I obviously feel for Sam, because it’s such a big tournament and she means so much to this team and this country,” Fowler said.

“But there’s just been love from the teammates towards her and from her towards us. So we move forward and we keep going.”

Coach Tony Gustavsson hailed Kerr’s handling of herself.

“Sam was very clear when she brought the team together and said, ‘this is not about me, this is about you’,” he said.

“She wanted to be focused on the team and for the players to be able to do that in that devastating moment for her personally says a lot about her as a captain for this team.”

-AAP