ADELAIDE: Australia routed Thailand 5-0 in their last Group B game to storm into the semifinals of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup 2006 here on Monday. The hosts will now meet Group A winners Japan in Thursday’s semi-final. In another Group B game, DPR Korea’s victory over Korea Republic saw them finish on top of the group on better goal difference. Both DPR Korea and Australia finished with 10 points each. Australia held a two-goal advantage at the interval courtesy of goals from stand-in captain Alicia Ferguson and striker Joanne Burgess. Ferguson headed home the opener from a pinpoint Heather Garriock corner just four minutes into her debut match as Australian captain in the absence of regular skipper Cheryl Salisbury and stand-in Joanne Peters. Second half strikes from Sarah Walsh, Kate Gill and Lisa De Vanna meant the Australians ultimately fell three goals short of overhauling DPR Korea on goal difference. A 7-0 margin to Australia would have seen the teams equal on every count back criteria and resulted in the drawing of lots.

After Ferguson opened the scoring, the Australians created numerous openings particularly through the pace of flankers Walsh and De Vanna. However it was De Vanna who laid on the second goal providing a pass for Joanne Burgess to skip away from a flat defensive line and easily slot past the Thai goalkeeper.

There were further goalscoring opportunities for De Vanna, Ferguson , Kylie Ledbrook and Garriock, before Walsh put the match out of the visitors reach in the 54 th minute with a near-post strike from an acute angle.

Nine minutes later Australia were four goals to the good and threatening to over-run Thailand. Substitute Gill, who had only been on for five minutes, finished off from close-range after Collette McCallum got in behind the defence and squared the ball from the left flank.

Despite numerous forays into the opposition penalty area there was only one more goal with De Vanna finishing off the scoring eight minutes from time with a well-deserved goal. “I am certainly not disappointed with the effort and way we played though I was disappointed with the lack of care and the lack of quality in the finishing,” said Australia coach Tom Sermanni. “On the positive side we haven’t conceded any goals and we haven’t lost any games.

We are going into the semi finals with a fit and healthy squad and a team that is playing well.” “Because we have had some good results, we have been able to rotate the squad and give players opportunity; give players game time and also the chance to claim a spot in the team. At the same time we have been able to rest players, so when we go into the match on Thursday the players shouldn’t be suffering from fatigue given we have been able to rotate the squad quite successfully.”