“I thought that we were on the wrong side of average,” explained Blues coach Charlie Naimo, after watching Liz Bogus score in the 31st minute and again in the 70th minute for the margin of victory.

Over the coming days, we will see how well Canada responds to Wednesday’s 2-1 loss to Japan in the group-stage opener of the Olympic tournament in Coventry. You can’t escape some of the parallels to the 2011 World Cup opener, another 2-1 loss to a world-power team.

Canada’s women’s U-20 side and the Swiss U-20 side drew 1-1 on Friday night in front of 400 spectators.

Sinclair can score a goal a game, but it might not be enough. The difference from Canada going out in the group stage to Canada going deep into the tournament will be Big Red’s ability to find secondary scoring.

An audacious first-half chip from Diana Matheson and a cool second-half finish from Christine Sinclair gave Canada a 2-0 win over New Zealand in the opening match of the Matchworld Women’s World Cup.

“We create some technical blueprints in each game,” Herdman said during a conference call with media on Wednesday.

Sinclair scored her 15th goal of the season on Monday as Canada beat Colombia 1-0 in a pre-Olympic friendly held in Switzerland. What’s notable is that the most goals Sinclair has registered in a calendar year for Canada is 16. She is now only one away from tying the record.

It’s not a surprise — but the heavily favoured Ottawa Fury’s women’s team captured its regular-season division title with a 1-0 win over the Toronto Lady Lynx on Saturday.

“We’re one goal away from the potential gold medalist, and I think that’s a reality,” he explained. ?“In January, we were four goals away. We’ll try to bridge that gap in the next few weeks.”

But the feel-good last-gasp goal shouldn’t completely mask what was a frustrating performance by the Canadian team in front of the home fans in Moncton.