Australia struggled to get into the World Cup qualifier with a high-energy home side dominating from kick-off but unable to convert their chances into goals.

The Socceroos managed to steal the victory with a breakaway run by Brett Emerton who fired in a ball across the box to find Brett Holman's head who nodded it home to grab the win.

Afterwards players and staff conceded the Socceroos had put ina lacklustre shift against a surprisingly good Thai opposition but insisted they earned their win - and can be better.

"We had to prepare well for this game," said skipper Lucas Neill. "Good crowd so we knew it was going to be tough and they threw everything at us.

"Good strength shown by the guys today. It was never going to be an easy game but we just persevered and stuck to it and showed a little bit of patience and got our reward.

"They had a boy on the wing who was lightning down the right but we got past that and recovered in the second half, adjusted, played well in the second half and did enough to limit them to shots outside the box so credit to the boys.

"We showed that patience and then when we had to, we showed the killer punch for the crucial goal."

He added: We've just got to keep improving in all areas, keeping clean sheets out of good habits, keep the passing game going and get better at it and then obviously create chances.

"Obviously better quality from the wings, making sure we get lots of opportunities to score and nothing at the other end."

Goal hero Holman had a largely anonymous game until he nabbed the winner, with service from midfield hard to come by for the marauding attacker.

But he admitted the performance shown in this game and last week's against Oman may not be good enough to get them through the second group stage of qualification.

"Depends on who the group is for the next phase, I suppose," he said. "We got the job done and that's the most important thing.

"We can look at the opponents we'll have in group two and see how we go from there."

For Holman though, he was just happy to walk away with another Socceroo win under his belt.

"These sort of games it all depends on who gets the three points and we did that tonight, not convincingly but we didn't give much away either so that was the most important thing," he said.

"Every player wants to get involved and be on the ball and do their thing. Thailand defended really really well and it was tough to get involved so I'm happy with the win.

"We just have to work on our play and when we have the ball. We're defending well but the most important thing is what we're doing with ball and I think we have to work a lot on that."