Irankunda became Australia's youngest-ever World Cup goalscorer when he latched onto Paul Okon-Engstler's long ball forward to produce a wonderful touch and finish after 27 minutes. 

Turkiye, ranked below Australia in the FIFA rankings, entered this match as favourite and applied plenty of pressure at 1-0 down, but another excellent strike put the game beyond them with 15 minutes to play, as Metcalfe scampered forward before finding the bottom-right corner from range.

Australia's victory puts it level on points with United States at the top of Group D, while Turkiye and Paraguay remain pointless ahead of their pivotal meeting on Saturday. 

Turkiye bossed possession early on in front of a vocal crowd at BC Place, but it was limited to hopeful long-range attempts from Arda Guler and Ferdi Kadioglu.

The European mation was caught out by a lightning counter after Guler shot straight at Patrick Beach. The ball was in the other net just 17 seconds after that save, with Irankunda brilliantly beating Merih Demiral in the left-hand channel before slotting beyond Ugurcan Cakir.

Turkiye almost responded in stunning fashion as Abdulkerim Bardakci thumped a left-footed strike towards goal from 25 yards, which Beach pushed against his post at full stretch. 

In need of more attacking impetus, Turkiye introduced Juventus forward Kenan Yildiz – who had been nursing a calf issue – at half-time, but it almost went 2-0 down when Harry Souttar's downward header was scrambled away by Cakir.

Beach then got down to keep out a curling free-kick from Guler, while he also had to stand firm at his near post to deny Zeki Celik as Turkiye set up camp on the edge of Australia's area.

But Tony Popovic's team got its clinching goal against the run of play when, after Ismail Yuksek's giveaway in midfield, Metcalfe squeezed his effort past the outstretched glove of Cakir.