The 26-year-old Wellington defender turned in a stellar performance last week to help thwart Sydney FC in Phoenix's stunning 2-1 defeat of the sky blues.

Playing in an unfamiliar holding midfield role, 26-year-old McKain showed he hasn't lost any of the skill that earned him 12 Socceroo caps and an Olympics call up in 2004.

With the Bahrain World Cup qualifier squad already announced, the next chance McKain has would be for the Asian Cup qualifier against Kuwait on the Gold Coast in mid January.

Ironically, the last time the Queenslander played for Australia was in 2006 in the hothouse of Kuwait City. He played a full game in the 2-0 Asian Cup qualifier loss to the Kuwaitis.

"I felt comfortable in that holding role and I'm getting fitter," he told au.fourfourtwo.com.

"I had a few niggling injuries at the start of the season which I don't like to complain about but now I've come back to full fitness and been able to play the way I can."

Verbeek this week called up the Mariners' in-form holding midfielder Mile Jedinak as well as Jade North for the Bahrain squad.

"A few more games and I've always got ambitions to play for the Socceroos, whether that be at the back or in midfield," added McKain.

McKain joined Phoenix in the off-season from Romania's Politehnica Timisoara and his return to full fitness has been a boost to coach Ricki Herbert as Phoenix look to springboard into finals contention with two home games coming up against the Jets and Melbourne.

"I'm just concentrating on performing for the Phoenix," said McKain. "We haven't backed up week in week out and that's something we have to do.

"It's not good enough to do it one game"

He added: "We've been written off by the media in New Zealand but at the end of the day there are eight teams and the top four get into the finals.

"And against Sydney, the bottom of the table beat one of the top teams so in this league it's so close."