Caltex Socceroos skipper Mile Jedinak admits the narrow loss to England hurts, believing the result wasn’t a reflection of his side’s level of performance.
Despite losing 2-1 to goals from Marcus Rashford and Wayne Rooney, Ange Postecoglou’s side wouldn’t have lost any admirers as they took the game to Roy Hodgson’s troops.
Caltex Socceroos go down to England
The Socceroos controlled large periods of the match and looked comfortable in front of a sell-out crowd at the Stadium of Light.
Jedinak, who plays against most of the England squad every week in the EPL, feels the Socceroos more than matched their more highly-fancied rivals.
“That’s what that confidence does. That’s what the system we’ve been playing allows us to do,” he told Fox Sports.
“It’s still up to us as individuals to be brave on the ball and to try things to hurt the opposition. I thought we did that throughout and we picked up some really good positions.
“It was an all-round performance by everyone, even the subs that came on made an impact…I’m immensely proud of everyone.
“It’s got to hurt a little bit because the result wasn’t there but we can take a lot from that.
“Looking back, it’s a shame the result didn’t follow the performance,” Jedinak added.
"But we can take a lot of heart from that performance. Now we have to move on and use that going forward.”
The Socceroos created a lot of good moments but probably didn’t trouble goalkeeper Fraser Forster enough, with most of their efforts on goals failing to hit the target.
Highlights: Socceroos go down to England
Gallery: Caltex Socceroos shine at Stadium of Light
In the end it was only a late own goal from substitute Eric Dier which gave the visitors a lifeline, despite their excellent approach play.
“We got into some good positions in the first half and they [England’s defence] just seemed to get a toe on everything to take it off our feet,” said Jedinak when asked about Australia’s front third.
“It wasn’t a lack of trying or being in the right position, it just didn’t fall for us in that key moment.
“That’s something we’ll need to work on….we need to do that little bit with more conviction and then you never know what can happen.”
Asked if the performance of some of the Socceroos against England’s best proved they could potentially move to bigger European clubs, Jedinak said: “Everyone’s individual case is different but we’ve seen tonight that us as a team we mixed it with them for large periods.
“And I felt we were quite comfortable in doing so.
“That’s the challenge going forward, that’s the challenge that’s going to be asked of us as individuals now, wherever we are playing. As a collective we have to keep improving.”