“It’s an interesting idea,” crack defender Tobin told au.fourfourtwo.com today.

“It could be looked at. Who knows? Obviously it would be Arnie’s call and he looks after the entire team, but the defence does need more time together. At times our defending has been ugly and pretty ordinary.”

The Socceroo defence has gone through a rebuild since the World Cup with Tony Popovic, Tony Vidmar and Stan Lazaridis all calling time on their Green and Gold careers. And with Scott Chipperfield weighing up his Socceroo options, it’s been a new look Aussie backline that’s generally struggled in Thailand.

What’s more, both Arnold and his assistant John Kosmina were strikers in their heydays and not defenders.

Tobin, capped 113 times for Australia over 11 years up to 1999, added that in the earlier group games there seemed “big gaps between defence and attack, which may just be a conditioning issue for our boys.”

Australia heads to Hanoi for the glamour tie with Japan this weekend. Tobin says the Aussies should feel confident despite their poor form shown in the first two games.

“I don’t think moving from one base to another is going to make a difference either way. These guys are used to frequency of travel. It’s one day of interrupted training but I’m sure Arnie and the team will have taken a lot of positives out of last night’s game. The Aussie fighting character showed through.”

Tobin, the Central Coast Mariners’ development manager, added that the Asian Cup standard has been no surprise to him.

“I think a lot of people here thought we’d go through at a canter. I’ve been very impressed. The Asian nations were much maligned before this tournament by many people here. These weren’t my expectations.”

While Thailand just missed out last night after a terrific tournament, fellow minnows Vietnam are into the quarter-finals.

“It just goes to show you how fast the so-called bottom rung nations are developing,” says Tobin.

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