Mark Sampson has challenged his England Women’s squad to keep on improving following their dominant 3-0 Cyprus Cup win over Australia.
Jodie Taylor was the star of the show with a hat-trick, her first international goals, and the victory has secured England a place in the final of this annual friendly tournament for the third straight year.
Sampson was delighted with his side after they defeated Finland 3-1 in their opening match, but the head coach was even more fulsome in his praise of the eleven players that started Friday night’s match.
England Women 3-0 Australia
The Cyprus Cup
Friday 6 March
Nicosia, Cyprus
He said: "The girls who got the jersey tonight have [raised] the bar. The players who get an opportunity against Holland are going to have to go to another level.
"The focus for that game has to be to win it and produce a better performance than we did [against Australia].
"That will be a huge challenge based on the quality of that performance."
Sampson reserved a word of praise for Taylor, who broke her England duck in style.
The Portland Thorns striker opened the scoring with a terrific angled drive after eight minutes. She doubled the lead with a curling effort passed Brianna Davey just before the midway point in the half and then pounced on a moment of confusion in the Australia defence to complete her treble late on.
Sampson, who handed Taylor her debut, against Sweden, said: "Jodie is someone who wants to score goals.
England Women's head coach speaks to FATV after victory over Australia
"We have known the quality she has got and the work ethic she puts in for the team. Her movement [and] her defensive play is outstanding.
"Those goals were always going to come and it just happened that they came three in a row for her and she got a hat-trick."
He added: "For me, the team performance was excellent. I can single out Jodie but I could single out another 14 [players].
"We produced a very solid performance and made sure we got not only a win but a very good win."
