Sam Kerr back but without much of a bang after 725-day Australia absence | Joey Lynch

Perhaps Joe Montemurro is a fan of the O’Jays, or the Kinks, because the Matildas’ coach definitely didn’t waste any time in giving the people what they wanted when he picked his team to face Wales. There was to be no beating around the bush here, no carefully managed substitutions or reacting to the ebbs, flows and physicality of the game. For the first time in 725 days, Sam Kerr was going to play for Australia. And she was going to do so from the start.

After months of anticipation, the moment was here and the scene set for something special. Kerr had scored on her return for Chelsea, after all; why not now in her return to the national team fold, too?

When she made a darting run to the near post to meet a Courtney Nevin free-kick after 28 minutes it seemed the moment had arrived. Here was that goal on her return, nearly two years in the making. Well … no, actually, because replays, as well as Kerr’s own reaction, showed that she had failed to make any contact with the ball as it was whipped in from the right, ensuring it went down as the first goal of Nevin’s international career instead. A great moment, sure, but not one they will be holding the back pages for.

The striker had said in the buildup to the game that she had about 70 minutes in her legs, a significant step up from the 34 she had managed in her last game with Chelsea. In the end, she proved pretty much as good as her word, working hard up top and making it through to the 65th minute before being replaced by Holly McNamara as part of a triple change. Twenty minutes later, Caitlin Foord struck to secure a 2-1 win, after Mared Griffiths’s 55th-minute equaliser.

The game produced plenty of non Kerr-related storylines, too. Taking the field for the first time since three heavy defeats at the Euros, Wales held their own against strong opposition. Nevin and Winonah Heatley both showed promising signs in defence for Australia, Cortnee Vine returned for the first time since the Paris Olympics and, playing alongside Clare Wheeler and Kyra Cooney-Cross in what is probably Australia’s best midfield three, Katrina Gorry’s ability to play through a press remains a key cog for the Matildas. Foord, for her part, remains incredibly good at this whole football thing.

Sam Kerr fails to make any contact with Courtney Nevin’s free-kick for Australia’s opening goal. Photograph: Matthew Childs/Action Images/Reuters

But Kerr’s return was always going to hoover up most of the oxygen surrounding this game, even if she didn’t actually do all that much to impose herself. To some extent, you have to have some sympathy for the Wales veteran Jess Fishlock, an integral part of the story of the A-League Women and, on her day, one of the most dominant players to ever lace up their boots in Australia, taking something of a backseat as she played for the 166th and final time on the international stage. A level of commiseration needs to go, too, to Hayley Raso, who has gone from learning to walk again after sustaining a broken back to playing 100 games for Australia. Both, at least, had the honour of donning the armband and leading their team out at the Cardiff City Stadium.

Yet there’s a reason that Kerr attracts this kind of attention. The striker, despite her long absence and off-field controversies, remains the face of Australian football. When she picked up an anterior cruciate ligament injury, she was one of the most decorated and feared strikers in the world. In her absence Austraia made a group-stage exit at the Paris Olympics and have fallen from 12th in the world to 15th.

Once the excitement of her return settles, there are pertinent questions as to how she will fit into this team. She is a freak athlete, but also one who is 32 and coming off a near two-year-long recovery. She was injured while Tony Gustavsson was national-team coach – the Swede having landed on a 4-4-2 that got close to the best out of her and Foord – but Montemurro will have his own ideas on how to fit her into what he wants to do. Part of this will be figuring out her place in an attack also featuring Foord (arguably the Matildas’ most important player now), Raso, McNamara, Amy Sayer, Mary Fowler, Michelle Heyman and any other forward that emerges.

But these questions were only ever going to be able to be answered when Kerr actually got back out on to the pitch. With that now complete, the Matildas can look forward, with their talisman back within their ranks.