Sat 26 June ‘99

The Matildas have been eliminated from the World Cup Finals following today's 3-1 loss to Olympic silver medallists and hot favourites China at New York's Giants Stadium.

Australia clearly put in their best performance of the championship but were faced with a near impossible challenge in the must-win game with the harsh 2^nd minute sending-off of striker Alicia Ferguson for a clumsy but not reckless tackle. The expulsion was especially hard for the 17-year-old who was making her first appearance for the tournament.

The Matildas battled hard in the steamy 33 degree heat before a Giants Stadium crowd of 29,401, the largest attendance for the event for a match not involving the home side Americans.

Australia held firm bravely until six minutes from half-time when Chinese sharpshooter Sun Wen was allowed space in front of goal to head strongly home from 7 metres. China doubled their lead six minutes after the break with a dangerous cross and touch back to Sun Wen for the star to nail her second for the match and fifth for the tournament.

Australia made one of their rare chances count in the 66^th minute to pull the deficit back to one. Captain Julie Murray's cross from the left found the unmarked Cheryl Salisbury whose shot on the turn was parried by the goalkeeper but just had enough legs to roll over the line for a scoreline of 2-1.

But China sunk any hopes of an Australian comeback with their third goal seven minutes later. Another neat passing combination resulted in a Liu Ying shot from 15 metres which took a deflection off a defender's leg to give Matildas' keeper Belinda Kitching no chance.

Disappointing form earlier in the tournament all but ruined Australia's hopes of a quarterfinal berth, but today's improved display will boost morale as they head home and look toward the coming twelve months leading into the 8-nation Olympic Games tournament.

"I was very disappointed to concede the goal before half-time as I thought we were going okay till then," said National Coach Greg Brown. "That's the first time I've seen a player sent off in the first minute and I don't think the crowd approved, but in fairness I didn't see the tackle."

"The World Cup is always a good test of your ability, and we have a lot of work to do before the Olympics," he added. "We have to learn to play our game, play to our strengths, but we lost our heads a bit. The first two games were more of a disappointment as we thought we could win those. Certainly we played better in our preparation and we'll have to review the whole thing. You can't go from beating China, Italy and Sweden to a team that can't play. I just feel a few things didn't go our way and we didn't play our best. There are lessons learnt by the players and myself and we still have twelve months to put things right."

The Matildas now depart USA tomorrow and those going home are scheduled to arrive back in Canberra (via Sydney) on Tuesday 29 June at 9am.

Australia : Kitching, Bartlett, Starr, Tann-Darby, Alagich, Golebiowski, Forman (Wilson 79), Salisbury (Hepperlin 86), Casagrande (Iannotta 72), Murray, Ferguson.