Lauren Hemp hails ‘special’ England as Ella Toone toasts ‘best shot’ of her life

Lauren Hemp hailed England as “a special team” and Ella Toone toasted the best shot of her life after the Lionesses reached their first World Cup final with a 3-1 victory over co-hosts Australia.

Hemp restored England’s lead in the second half, after Matildas captain Sam Kerr cancelled out Toone’s stunning opener, and provided the assist that allowed Alessia Russo to put the game away after 86 minutes.

England, who will face Spain in Sunday’s showdown in Sydney, are just one win away from securing the second major trophy in their history just under 13 months after becoming European champions at Wembley.

Player-of-the-match Hemp, who started every game of that triumph, said: “Oh my god, what a feeling. I feel like there are no words to describe what we all feel right now.

“It’s an unbelievable achievement, getting to a World Cup final. It’s every kid’s dream. I mean, I’ve got no words, I’m absolutely knackered right now. We’ve got a few days to recover but then we go again.

“We want to win this, obviously we’ve come so far now, so why not?

“I feel like as a team we have got such an inner-belief and also so much confidence as the group. No matter what happens on the outside, no matter who we come up against, every challenge we’ve managed to solve.

“I feel like this team is so special. You saw last year how successful we were. We want to do the same again and we want to go one step further.

“We have all got a dream. We’re pushing each other to be the best that we can and we know that whenever a player gets beaten by their opponent, we know there will be someone there, having each others’ backs, no matter what.”

World number four England have grown into this tournament since eking out a 1-0 win against Haiti, 49 places below them in FIFA’s global rankings, to open their campaign – sparking concerns about the Lionesses’ prowess in attack.

Russo and Hemp have netted three goals each in this tournament, equalling the contribution made by Chelsea forward Lauren James before she was sent off late in the second half of England’s victory over Nigeria in the last 16.

England have never had two different players score three or more goals at a single edition of the tournament before, with James also set to be available for Sunday’s final after serving the second match of her two-game suspension on Wednesday night.

That might put Toone’s chances of starting the final at risk, but the Manchester United midfielder could not have done any more to impress head coach Sarina Wiegman, lashing in a thunderous strike to set England on their way in Sydney.

“It fell straight to me in the box and I just thought ‘why not just smack it?’ Honestly, that’s the best shot I’ve hit in my life,” said Toone, who scored the opener in last summer’s Euro 2022 final triumph.

“Sometimes when you hit a ball, you just know I’ve caught that perfectly and I was like ‘wow, that was alright’. I think I knew as soon as it left my boot that it was going to end up in the back of the net.

“It seems to be I like the big stage in tournaments, but in tournament football it is often about taking those moments and it was my turn to do so tonight.

“I had my moment, it fell to me and I put it in the back of the net. Even if I hadn’t scored, I would still have done my job for this team, worked hard and did what I needed to do.

“When big moments fall to me in tournaments, I’ve taken them.”