Tim Cahill scored the only goal of the game late in the second half after he finally managed to scramble home the ball from a goalmouth melee to give Australia their first win in the Asian Cup qualifying campaign.

Despite an early good start, Australia were soon overrun by the dangerous Omanis whose swift counter attack showed up the rustiness in some of the first team Aussies that have been lacking top flight match practice.

After the final whistle goal hero Cahill admitted Australia could have done more to make the game easier for themselves.

"I suppose the main aim was to get the win," he said. "I'm just happy it puts us in a good position and look forward to the rest of the competition.

"We had a lot of chances but you have to put the ball in the back of the net. In the end it came to me and I got a clean strike to it.'

He added: "If we had drawn we still would have been down the bottom of the table.

"Clean sheet, great training all week, great game against Holland, two very diverse gams but we've come through with a win. We definitely woudl have been frustrated if we'd lost tonight.

"The game against Holland took a lot out of us. We spent a lot of that night chasing the ball and tonight he had a lot of the ball - we just had to put it in the back of the net."

Harry Kewell insisted Australia had been cruising more easily than it appeared - but had felt the weight of public expectation on their shoulders.

"I think there was a lot of pressure put on us today which came from the public which is good," he said. "Sometimes we need a kick up the backside.

"I think we played well tonight. Oman played well but we had more chances. We looked comfortable and looked like we created a lot of chances. It just didn't fall for us in the first half, we worked hard.

He added: "It was akind of scrappy goal from tim but he was there for us again.

"It was just good to be out there and playing football again"

Gold Coast United star Jason Culina admitted: "It wasn't one of our better performances. It was a little bit disappointing.

"We had a lot of good chances and on a better day we would have put them away."