The Socceroos dominated almost every statistical category, but their susceptibility to the War Elephants' counterattack and their own stale offense left them needing an 86th goal from substitute Alex Brosque to secure the 2-1 win.

With world No.120 Thailand rated the weakest in Australia's four-team qualifying group by many, the narrow result was worth three competition points and very little else, according to Neill.

"Did we deserve it? No" he said.

"I don't think it was a performance worthy of a win, but we'll take the win – of course we will – and we'll reflect on it.

"We didn't play enough positive passes, forward passes, and our delivery from out wide wasn't up to scratch.

"You have to give good players in the box good service and we didn't do that tonight, and got done with a sucker-punch down the other end as well.

"It's great to be able to get three points and hopefully now come away and put a bad game behind us and learn from it and build from it."

German-born Socceroos coach Holger Osieck didn't attempt to defend the unconvincing start to the qualifying campaign, who he believes his side subconsciously underrated, but he did insist the result should be kept in perspective.

"First of all, we have to put things into perspective. It is the first game of a campaign, and our campaign is a tournament, and I was proved right by the game today how hard it is to start," he said.

"It was even more difficult because there was a tendency to underrate our opponent and say it's going to be a victory with a large margin of goals.

"That was a dangerous situation and one thing I didn't like at all prior and unfortunately I was proven right by the game today."

The result gives Australia a record of four wins and a draw since their 1-0 Asian Cup Final loss to Japan, and captain Lucas Neill said the side had proven they could grind out a result when things weren't going their way.

"We're a good team, we just had a bad night and we still managed to win," said Neill.

"Is that the sign of a good team? I don't know, it's hard to say, but a bad performance and three points is something we can look back on it... and be laughing about it come next June when we're in the next round – that's the objective."

The Socceroos will now fly to Saudi Arabia with a short, four-day turnaround before their next group match.