Despite the pain of the Black Princesses' World Cup exit, coach Bashir Hayford believes it would certainly have a silver lining for Ghana's development of the game.

The Black Princesses were eliminated in the first round of the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup after Ghana were left short of Group A rivals Korea DPR and hosts Canada on goal difference.

Ghana kicked off their campaign with 1-0 win against the hosts, then lost 3-0 to the Koreans before bouncing back to secure a 2-1 victory in the final group match on Tuesday over Finland.

Though finishing on 6 points apiece with the top two sides, they could not garner enough goals to their advantage to secure them a maiden last-eight appearance.

"Our aim was to qualify. We won our first match, lost the second one and we won today too, so we got six points out of nine, which is excellent. But due to the numbers we couldn’t advance to the next stage," Hayford said after the game.

With another World Cup showpiece ending in the first round for Ghana, Hayford says the positive strides made from the previous campaign will aid the progress of the game.

"It has been a very nice tournament for us because two years ago in Japan we could not even manage to score one goal. This time we have scored three goals, which shows that we are moving forward. Despite the fact we couldn’t qualify, we have a very promising team. Now we’ll try to qualify for the next tournament and try again to go through," the Ghana coach added.