Australia bounced back from their 3-0 defeat to USA on Saturday after playing out a 1-1 draw in front of a record-breaking crowd of 20,495 spectators, in their second and final friendly match against world champions USA in their last hit-out before January's Asian Cup.

The Matildas started sluggishly, allowing Hatch and winger Margaret Purce time and space for a simple run and cut-back to open the scoring in the fourth minute.

However, a flock of changes towards the end of the second half — including centre-back Alanna Kennedy and midfielder Clare Wheeler — brought new life to the Matildas, and it was Wheeler's crucial slide-tackle that started a move leading to Simon's equaliser, which was helped into the net by a nasty deflection from American centre-back Becky Sauerbrunn.

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