Chinese Taipei host the Socceroos in Taiwan on Thursday with the green and gold coming off a 5-0 win over Nepal, while Lancaster's team suffered a 2-0 loss to Nepal and a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Jordan.

But Lancaster, who has been in charge for just 10 months, says his side is feeling hopeful ahead of their huge challenge against a team ranked 85 places above them by FIFA.

"We’re obviously disappointed with the Nepal game," he told FTBL.

"We’ve had a little refocus, we’ve had a wake-up call but also take a lot from that Nepal game in the sense anything can happen in a one-off game. Everyone has been pushing each other and challenging for places.

"Things like passion, hunger and desire have a funny way of proving people wrong. And in football you get these underdog moments. We’ve given ourselves hope and as long as we keep true to our values, then that’s no problem.

"Australia have got fantastic players all over the park. Everyone thinks we’re going to drop deep and we’re just going to sit back. We’ve got an opportunity to do that but sometimes there’s an emergency in a game and you need to do that.

"But we don’t want to lose our speed and our flair. We’re quite a creative team that can cause a bit of a sucker punch at times. If we sit too deep we’ll take that away."

Chinese Taipei have never qualified for a World Cup and last played in an Asian Cup in 1968.

Lancaster hails from the UK and was appointed by the island nation in January, after Gary White left to take over Hong Kong.

Before that the 38-year-old had assisted White and helped the country reach their highest-ever FIFA ranking and win their first piece of silverware in 49 years.

A former academy coach at Portsmouth and Watford, where Harry Kewell was a colleague, Lancaster is enjoying his time in Asia.

"Communication for me has been one of the biggest challenges here," he said.

"In Asia they get things done but there’s no who, what, when, why. They don’t understand the details, but to us that’s the biggest improvement we’ve made.

"I’m having Mandarin lessons because I don’t just want to communicate with the footballer but the person."