Gustavsson praises game-changer Clare Wheeler post-match

It was an 88th minute deflected goal from Kyah Simon that earned the CommBank Matildas their first point against the USWNT on home soil, but it was 'game-changer' Clare Wheeler who was a talking point at the AUSvUSWNT post-match press conference.

After a 1-1 draw against the World No. 1 in front of the CommBank Matildas' second-largest home crowd, head coach Tony Gustavsson and defender, Ellie Carpenter spoke to media about their learnings from the two-match series and young 'game-changer' Clare Wheeler.

"Last game we talked about what wins and loses your games and I said, it's going to be in the 18," Gustavsson reiterated.

"Some of the stats tonight were actually not as good as last game, in terms of possession final third entries, box entries.

"But we said after that game that it's the conversion rate in and around the box. Last game, their goalkeeper kept them in the game and tonight our goalkeeper [Lydia Williams] kept us in the game.

"In terms of what changed [since Saturday's game] it was the game-changers we've talked about. It's not just about the starting lineup, it's about the finishing lineup, and the game-changers actually changed the game for us, but also the tactical change to go to double line, as we call it. That had a huge effect positively tonight.

"The number one thing while we changed the game is to never say die attitude that Ellie and all the players stand for. That's the DNA of this team and I'm so proud to be part of a team that has this attitude."

HIGHLIGHTS: Never Say Die CommBank Matildas hold out for draw with World No.1

Gustavsson praised young Novocastrian Clare Wheeler as one of those CommBank Matildas game-changers.

"I'm so glad that you brought that up [Wheeler's tackle which led to Kyah Simon equalising] because sometimes that isn't credited enough," he said.

"Obviously it was great to see Kyah [Simon] score after she missed that chance [last match], but I said we needed to be more physical, win our fight plan, our one-on-one duels and Clare was the game-changer that came in with that mindset and without her tackle, we wouldn't have scored, so huge credit to her."

Gustavsson then went on to explain the strategy behind last night's line-up.

"We went back and looked at a lot of learnings from the last game. We went all the way back to the Olympics, and we asked ourselves if this was the bronze medal game in the Olympics how would we play?

"We looked at a lineup with the players available and said, we would most like to play 3-4-3 with Steph and Ellie centrebacks and then playing them in central and then Meeks [Tameka Yallop] and [Hayley] Raso as wingbacks with Kyra [Cooney-Cross] and EvE [Emily van Egmond] and three forwards that we had available.

"So we said, alright, if that is what we would have done at the Olympics, let put the same players on the park, but we wanted to stick with the 4-3-3, so we rotated Raso up as a forward because we wanted to look at the strongest short-term line-up possible to also finish the game."

Carpenter was asked what she had learnt about herself and also the squad's capabilities going into the future.

"I think for us as a team,  the most important thing about a game is the two boxes and we need to be clinical enough in the final third, but then also aim for those clean sheets every game," she explained.

"Obviously, this was a good test against the world number one and we've seen in the last few games that we can't switch off or have lapses in concentration, especially in the final third in our backline. So I think we just need to tighten that up.

"The first game we said, this is kind of like a World Cup final, to experience putting that pressure on ourselves," she continued.

"We obviously didn't execute how we wanted to in the first game, but tonight, it was good to get the draw and build our confidence going into the Asian Cup."