Last night's performance by Australia was not what head coach Pim Verbeek was looking for.

The Socceroos struggled against what was supposed to be an inferior opponent in New Zealand before rallying together and somehow managing to win 2-1.

Despite there being six first team regulars not even in the squad and a raft of substitutions throughout the 90 minutes, Verbeek was less than impressed with his players and said it was lucky they had three weeks before the World Cup to put their mistakes right.

"I know we trained quite hard this week but you expect more from the players," Verbeek said after the match.

"No confidence, there was no communication, everything they normally do very well was not there.

"We couldn't keep the ball in the team, gave it too easily away and I think New Zealand was very dangerous.

"If the World Cup was on Saturday I think it would be a big problem for us but luckily it's not and we have three weeks to work on what we did poorly.

"We can do something about that. But it's a good lesson today, no doubt about that."

Of the result, Verbeek said 1-1 was probably a more reflective scoreline and the end result was purely for the stats men.

"Okay, it's nice, it's good to finish a game like that. It's just for statistics," he said.