In front of a record 30,640, the Dutch were victorious in front of their home fans in Eindhoven.

For the Matildas, it was another learning curve for the way Ante Milicic plays his defence.

While the score might not reflect the whole story, it does show just how clinical the Dutch were in the game. 

The Matildas started the first half in a lively fashion but for the Netherlands, after 11 minutes they lost Kika van Es to a suspected arm injury after an earlier clash with Hayley Raso. 

This forced change, which saw Merel van Dongen come on, did give the Netherlands a few hiccups especially when dealing with the pace of Sam Kerr and Hayley Raso. However, there were only a few clear cut chances with each of those landing in the hands of Dutch goalkeeper Sari van Veenendaal. 

It appeared as the first half was going to be goalless but a crunching tackle from Steph Catley deep in the Matildas half, which would result in a freekick, gave the Netherlands a sniff at goals. 

The resulting freekick would find the head of van de Sanden to open the scoring just a minute from the break. However, four Dutch players were left unmarked running into the box upon replay.

It was a bit of a blow considering how well the Matildas were going up until that stage. 

When teams returned from the break, the Netherlands picked up right where they left off. It's like their momentum never halted with the break, which wasn't good for Australia. 

The home side used their speed and skillfulness of Lieke Martens, Vivianne Miedema and van Veenendaal to bring the ball forward.

It worked and worked well for the Netherlands as they would go on to score to more goals.

The result sees the Matildas enter the World Cup with two losses against top 10 nations and three wins against nations ranked between 14 and 39.

It's the first time since 2016 that Australia has lost back-to-back matches. 

There were positives to take from the game including great positioning and ball movement from the team but once again it's the defence Milicic will be looking at ahead of the Matildas opening World Cup match in just eight day time.