Sam Kerr ruled out of first two Matildas Women’s World Cup games with calf injury

Matildas captain Sam Kerr has been ruled out of the first two games of Australia’s World Cup campaign after suffering a calf injury.

The announcement was made through the side’s official social media coming as a brutal blow as the team got set to take on the Republic of Ireland.

While Sam Kerr was named on the bench for the first game of the tournament it is expected that she will not make any involvement.

The team wrote on Twitter: “Sam Kerr is unavailable tonight after she picked up a calf injury at training on MD-1. Sam will be unavailable for the next two matches with the Matildas Medical Team to re-assess her following our second group stage match.”

Kerr confirmed the news via her own social media, revealing that the injury was suffered during the team’s final training session.

She wrote: “Of course I would have loved to have been out there tonight but I can’t wait to be apart of this amazing journey which starts now.”

It is believed that the Chelsea striker will be likely to miss out of the second game against Nigeria as well.

It’s a shocking development as arguably the most in-demand footballer in the entire tournament misses out.

A record crowd of more than 75,000 fans will be in attendance at Stadium Australia as the Matildas will have to kick off their tournament without their star player.