We learnt a lot: Cole

 By HENRY MORABANG
PAPUA New Guinea Under-20 women’s coach Lisa Cole is pleased with the direction her squad is taking as it continues its preparation for November’s Fifa U20 Women’s World Cup in Port Moresby.
Cole said her side had learned some valuable lessons from both friendlies against Japan and the USA, despite losing both games by 10-goal margins.
“Japan gave us one type of game; they were quick and they did the same thing to the US. The game against USA was to get the PNG girls focused on the fact that it was different type of football,” Cole told reporters on Monday night.
“We’re trying to go from having zero experience to gaining a lot of experience in a short amount of time.
“We lost a bit of our discipline in the second-half by not dropping back enough and getting caught behind.
“It was hard and difficult to track a lot of their runners because their fitness was a lot better than ours — but that was expected.
“They have played a ton of games and have experience; and again, that’s only PNG’s second international game,” she said.
Coal said she was not happy with all the goals by USA.
“I think with Japan, you look at most of the goals and go ‘yeah, okay, they were really great goals’.
“We lost our focus a little bit against the US and some of their goals were preventable, but you got to hand it to the US, they’re a very good team.”
“But from the two matches, we obviously learnt a lot,” she said.
Cole said they (PNG U20) have a planned trip to South Korea on June 22 and then later to the US on August 1.
The team are planning to play three games in South Korea, including a match with the South Korea U20s, who are also in the World Cup.
She said the team needs at least 15 games to complete their preparations, with tours of New Zealand and Australia planned for October and September.