Leckie's superb solo score sets up date Australia's with Argentina

Sometimes football is not beautiful. Sometimes doing just enough, for just long enough, can lay the foundation, open the door.

- Emma Kemp

So it was that a counter-attack ended Australia's agony and Denmark's campaign. It took 60 minutes for Mat Leckie to score, an hour of mostly last-ditch defending and some positive moments, and a goal from Tunisia against France that meant the Socceroos would have to win or be out themselves.

In the end it was Denmark's second-half impotence that ended their tournament prematurely, their early brightness dissipating in the face of a Socceroos side which left it late but rallied when it had to and once again displayed a level of quality belying their inexperience.

Hands were held to mouths inside Al Janoub Stadium right up until the final whistle, as Christian Eriksen whipped in two corners and Harry Souttar made three vital interventions to send Australia into the round of 16 for the first time since 2006. On Saturday they will play Argentina, in a continuation of a World Cup brimming with upsets and implosions.

The latter is Denmark's lot. The head coach, Kasper Hjulmand, needed three points to stay in calculations, and even then would have been undone by Tunisia's defeat of a second-string France side resting sore bodies for the knockout stages in the knowledge they had qualified. The scenes of jubilation and heartbreak were already well under way when Antoine Griezmann seemingly equalised for France off the bench, meaning a draw would have sufficed, only to have it chalked off.