Scotland’s World Cup adventure begins with narrow defeat to England
Scotland’s World Cup adventure started with a controversial
and narrow defeat to England last night.
England took the lead after 15 minutes when the VAR spotted a Nicola Docherty handball in the penalty area and advised referee Jana Adamkovato award a penalty.
Nikita Parris fired the resultant spot-kick past Lee Alexander then Ellen White doubled England’s advantage in the 31st minute.
The Scots continued to push forward and Claire Emslie pulled one back in the dying stages but Phil Neville’s side held on to secure the victory.
After the game manager Shelley Kerr said: “In the first
instance I think it was harsh but obviously there are rules in place but that
is what VAR is there to do, help them.
“By the letter of the law it is a penalty but I still
thought it was harsh.
“After England scored they were on the ascendancy and they
created a few chances and were really dominant after the first ten minutes.
“If it had been the sole decision and finished 1-0 I might
feel a bit worse but I didn’t think we played well – you’ve got to try to adapt
your game plan after those decisions and we did lose a bit of momentum.
“The rules are the rules and we can’t change that.
“We need to look at the first half and where things went
wrong – we are playing at a World Cup so we need to scrutinise that – we
weren’t at our best,
“The second half I think we performed really well but we
need to recover now because that was a tough game and we are going to face a
though Japanese team.
“There was lots of positives in terms of our attacking play
in the second half and you have to bear in mind that you can’t always attack
when you are playing teams that are higher ranked than you.
“You need to have a bit of patience and be structured and
organised and it will be a different type of game against Japan but lots of
positives to take.”
The Scots now need positive results in their remaining Group
D fixtures against Japan and Argentina to see them through to the knockout
stages.