Matildas stalwart Clare Polkinghorne more focused on beating Brazil than her own farewell game

In July 2006, a fresh-faced Clare Polkinghorne made her Matildas debut in a 2-0 loss to Shanghai in China, a match which would have been watched by few people back home. On Thursday night, Polkinghorne will draw the curtain on a glittering, 167-game national team career in front of more than 40,000 people in her home city of Brisbane. But the more things have changed for the 35 year-old, a stalwart in the heart of Australia’s defence for almost two decades, the more things have stayed the same. For as much as Thursday’s night’s clash with Brazil at Suncorp Stadium will be about Polkinghorne’s emotional farewell, the centre-back’s team-first mentality remains unchanged. While she admitted the night would be special and she was looking forward to celebrating her career in front of friends and family, Polkinghorne said she was more focused on helping her side beat the Paris Olympics silver medalist. “The main thing is the team comes first. For me, it’s just about being part of the night and enjoying it and celebrating the career that I’ve had,” she said. Tom Sermani was the coach who gave Polkinghorne her first national team call-up as a 17 year-old, and the affable Scot will be on the sidelines in her final game as he continues his tenure at the Matildas’ interim coach. “It’s where my career started with Tommy in charge, and so it’s really special that he’s here at the end as well,” Polkinghorne said. “I think he’s brought a lot back to this team, and obviously the Germany result was something that we’re already really proud of as a team.” While Sermani quipped she would not be playing, before jokingly changing his tact after hearing Polkinghorne shower him with praise, he said he was proud to see his long-time charge end her career on her own terms. “In elite sport, it’s not often a player or an athlete gets to go out in their own terms and in such special circumstance, but if there’s anybody that deserves it, it’s Polks,” Sermani said. “We use the word legend very loosely these days, but I think it describes her. “18 years is enormous. If you look at a rule of thumb, if a player gets 10 years as a professional or 10 years in the national team, they’ve done extraordinary well and Claire’s done almost double that.” A number of Matildas, such as Emily van Egmond, Sam Kerr, Steph Catley, Caitlin Foord and Alanna Kennedy, are all within 40 games of the all-time games record, and Polkinghorne said she definitely thought she would be handing over the title one day. “There’s a few things in my career I’m most proud of, but on the record, it’s definitely going to be eclipsed, and probably sooner than we think,” she said. “There’s going to be a number of players that will play many more games than that. It’s a testament to to the growth of the game, that we’re playing more international games.” Michelle Heyman trained alone on Tuesday as she nursed an ankle injury suffered against Perth Glory on Sunday, but Sermani said all the overseas players jetting in for the Brazil game would be available. “This is where I come from, old school; you want to turn up, you want to play, you ask the players, do they want to play? I can guarantee 100 per cent they want to be out there,” he said. “They want to be out there for 90 minutes, so we will be putting out the strongest team possible.”