Matildas defenders Ellie Carpenter and Clare Hunt take centre stage from country NSW beginnings

At one end of a rural town’s rugby league field, and just inside the fence which separates the grass from the greyhound track, is the Matildas’ most wholesome World Cup live site. It’s not Tumbalong Park in Darling Harbour or Melbourne’s Federation Square, but more important to those there. A few dozen people shiver under blankets and the stars, but the advertisement gives them a reason to come down: “Heaters supplied.”

When the folk of Cowra, a small town on the central…