There's no place like home, Tony Gustavsson would like to make that clear, but sometimes playing 'home' matches away from Australia has its benefits.

With the bulk of the squad based in Europe, notably England and Scandinavia, Australia are playing this international break on the road, and faced South Africa in neutral London on Saturday.

The lack of travel for most players definitely influenced the commanding 4-1 win over Banyana Banyana at Kingsmeadow, said the Matildas coach, primarily because it enabled far more time on the training ground.

"We love playing on home soil in Australia, especially in a World Cup year," said the Swede, "to get that connection with the fans and do it together with the football community back home.

"But from a football preparation standpoint it is massive that we gets these camps in Europe. We had five training days compared to two-and-a-half last time in Australia.

"We have been looking for a solid performance of 90 minutes for some time. This was the most solid for a long time and it definitely has to do with the five days preparation."

After a modest run of results it was a much-needed win but Gustavsson accepts for some supporters it will have come too late.

"If you have made up your mind already about me or the team, it'll be 'yeah, yeah, but [South Africa] had players out, and are ranked 54', and show some disrespect to South Africa, but we knew we were against African champions and a team that had really challenged big teams.

"I think we dominated from minute 1 to 90, so that was an impressive performance. And we had young players. That was the future Matildas out there.

"Internally it'll bring more momentum and I hope people outside have the right perspective on this win."