Australia coach Alen Stajcic remains confident the Matildas’ Women’s World Cup campaign remains on track despite being held to a scoreless draw by South Korea in Amman, Jordan.

Australia’s free-flowing attack was stymied throughout 90 frustrating minutes by South Korea’s defensive gameplan. The Matildas, who only need to finish in the top-five of the eight-nation tournament to reach France, barely had a sight of goal in their group B opener.

“It is the first game of the tournament which is difficult, players ware nervous, it was a tough game and Korea were very aggressive, defending quite deep and nullifying the spaces,” Stajcic said.

“I’m happy with our team, we defended well and I don’t think [goalkeeper] Lydia [Williams] really had to touch the ball. What we did lack was that little bit of execution, so there are things to work on but it is not the worst start.”

There was good news before the match with key contributors Steph Catley and Hayley Raso deemed fully fit to start after sitting out last month’s Algarve Cup through injury. But it soon became apparent that Australia would be in for a tough test against the well-drilled South Koreans.

A scrappy opening meant the usual attacking combinations were missing, with star forwards Sam Kerr and Lisa De Vanna rarely seen in the first half. Australia found their passing range after the break but the Koreans, who clearly were intent on taking the sting out of the game, dropped deep to stifle the match.

Despite Australia’s domination in possession, there was only one clear cut goalscoring chance in the entire match, but substitute Kyah Stabbed stabbed her snapshot over the crossbar in the dying minutes.

“South Korea obviously had the intent of trying to defend deep, and get a point and maybe snatch a goal on the counterattack,” Stajcic said. “It was up to us of whether we had the cleverness, skill and guile to create enough chances and we probably didn’t.

“On reflection we were the team who wanted to win and that is the way we play. We would never play like that, where we sit back, I don’t care who we play.”

Australia next face Vietnam on Tuesday (Wednesday Australian time), with the Vietnamese suffering a 4-0 defeat against Asian champions Japan in the other group match.