The tall West Ham youth star cooly kept his head in front of goal to shake off defenders before calmly finishing and giving Australia a crucial win in their World Cup opener in Mexico this morning.

But just before the game got underway, he spoke to his club's official website whufc.com about the tournament and the Joeys' preparation.

How has your preparation for the FIFA U17 World Cup gone in Mexico?

"The preparation going into our first warm-up game against Canada was intense, because we want to start the tournament well. We watched videos of us attacking and defending to see what we were doing wrong and doing well, and there were good points to take out of those sessions.

"The preparation for Uruguay was a little different, because we had seen our attacking and defending views already. We didn't have any videos of Uruguay to see what they were like, so our focus turned to Ivory Coast, who are our first group-stage opponents. We watched some of their clips from a match not too long ago.

"We haven't had time for much sight-seeing yet as we have been fairly busy with training and adapting to the climate, but we have had plenty of down time to play a little bit of FIFA or catch-up with friends and family on Facebook."

Can you tell me about the Canada match? I hear you scored one goal and Australia won 2-1.

"Everyone was saying that Canada were a good side and they made us work for our victory. We had a lot of possession and our first goal was well-constructed, with a blind-sided run from Mitch Cooper which ended in a foul and a penalty which was convincingly slotted away by Jesse Makarounas .

"My goal came in the second third as we played three lots of 30 minutes. There were 10 minutes to go of the second third when I won the ball on the halfway line and ran out four defenders. One defender got a little touch on the ball which diverted it out of my path but then I made the tackle to win it back, and it fell to Jesse. He chipped it to me and I took it on my knee and chipped the onrushing goalkeeper to make it 2-0."

How did the Uruguay match go? You were 1-0 down and scored twice, so what were your goals like?

"We played two 35-minute halves against Uraguay and we went 1-0 down after about 30 minutes. We found it really hard to create any attacks for the majority of the first half, but in the second half it was a different story!

"We had a lot possession still and we went forward with it and looked dangerous. My first goal came from the 18-yard box from an angle. I had two defenders in front of me so I shifted it and struck it low and hard inside the side-netting to make it 1-1.

"My second goal to make it 2-1 came in the last 20 seconds when I was slipped through with a bouncing ball and I just lifted it over the goalkeeper into the net."

Have the two wins and your three goals given you confidence ahead of the tournament?

"Yes, these two victories have given us more confidence going into this tournament. It was really good because Uruguay and Canada are in the same group, so we would be through to the next round if we were in their group.

"Uruguay beat Argentina 2-1 in the South Amercian Under-17 Championship in March, so that win this has given us a lot of confidence!"

Do you have higher hopes for success at the FIFA U17 World Cup now than you did before these two games?

"I'm still going to treat it as I would have done before these two games, with the thought that if we don't play to our best each game, we won't be able to go further in this event.

"It is a privilege to be involved in this event as it does not take place every year, and for the team to have qualified for it is amazing.

"We all know, from players to staff, that we will be the underdogs going into this group but it doesn't bother us one bit!"

Picture courtesy of  whufc.com