The Young Socceroos have booked a quarter-final place at the AFC U20 Asian Cup with a game to spare, sizzling through 5-1 and 3-1 wins over the Kyrgyz Republic and Qatar to take the stress out of tonight’s final group stage match against China (10.30pm AEDT).

Musa Toure, Luka Jovanovic and Daniel Bennie have all hit the scoresheet twice thus far, Bennie’s rocket that sealed the come-from-behind win over Qatar the pick of them; they’re just a trio of examples as to what early exposure to A-League football has done to accelerate youth development, according to manager Trevor Morgan.

‘It’s very much in our favour at the moment that A-League clubs are making room for young players and developing them through playing matches. Obviously that match experience, as well as training, is vital’, Morgan told Box2Box from China.

‘It’s one thing to be training with a senior A-League club, but quite another to be trusted to play important matches at that level. It’s the same thing here, where we put them in important matches and ask them to trust themselves in important games.

‘This generation, there’s a few clever kids. I wouldn’t want to say other groups haven’t had plenty of talent, but this group is quite well aligned, and has good depth. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to make sure we’ve given experience to a large group of players, and this group represents all 63 players that have played in this squad since we started.’

With China level with Australia on six points in the contest for the group’s top spot, and crossover Group B still wide open, there is next to no clarity as to who the side may face in their quarter-final. Win that fixture and they’ll qualify for the U20 World Cup, which no Australian side has done since 2013, a generation that featured Jackson Irvine, Adam Taggart and Jason Geria.

‘It’s to our advantage to have already secured enough points, and knowing the group they’re a competitive bunch and want to win, so that will be our objective in the third match. Every match we play and these young boys put on the national team jersey, they want to win’, said Morgan.

‘Fortunately we’ve done some deep planning and have had the support of all the departments at Football Australia and have staff here working on that. We also have some remote staff to make sure we keep an eye across the whole of the tournament.

‘For the playing group our main objective is the next game in front of us, China; it’s up to us to play that match, our football, keep improving. The rest, we’ll have to let it sort itself out as we go, but you can’t put a handbrake on this group, they want to win things, so that will be their objective, for sure.’