Ghana ended any hopes of reaching the quarter-finals of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup after losing 3-0 to the Republic of Ireland in the final match of the group stages in Trinidad & Tobago.

Ahead of yesterday's final matches in a balanced Group D, all four teams were level on three points with the Black Maidens needing a win to progress to the last-eight.

Despite their elimination, coach of Ghana, Abraham Allotey says they would be returning home having picked up valuable lessons.

"This is a wonderful tournament and I’m happy to have participated in my second one here. I feel like we could have progressed to the next stage, but we came up short in too many areas of the game.

"We learned a lot of lessons here in Trinidad and Tobago and we will take them home with us. The Irish played very well tonight and we made far too many mistakes to consider it a good performance."

The Irish started off well and after five minutes they jumped into the lead when Megan Campbell struck a free-kick some 40 yards from goal which caught out Ghana’s goalkeeper Margaret Otoo, who was way off her line.

Stacie Donnelly made it 2-0 for the European side in the 36th minute.

Ghana could have reduced the deficit but Mary Essiful missed from a penalty in the 44th minute after Beatrice Sesu had been brought down in the box.

Ireland sealed the win in the 77th minute with a goal from Aileen Gilroy.