The Socceroos were accentuating the positives here Monday of getting out of their tournament opener with a 1-1 draw against Oman after looking condemned to a humbling defeat until Tim Cahill's stoppage time intervention.

The Bangkok heat, hovering around 34 Celsius (93F) at game time, drained the Aussies and left them with the conundrum of how to best utilise their energy levels for their remaining Group A matches with Iraq and co-hosts Thailand.

Coach Graham Arnold was critical of the slow tempo his players employed to start the match, wary of the heat's debilitating effects and conserving energy.

"We needed to start with a quick tempo. If you start with a slow tempo then you give the opponent confidence," he said.

"That allowed Oman to dictate terms which wasn't what I wanted the players to do."

The opinion in the Australian camp a day after their great escape was that the Socceroos had to impose themselves more on their lower-ranked opponents and not allow the conditions to become a mental barrier.

"We need to play cleverer football, we've had discussions after the game," Schwarzer said Monday.

"I don't think we helped ourselves last night and we didn't play to our own strengths and I think we need to work on that and make sure that we make the opposition do most of the running and chase us.

"If we can play to our strengths and maximise our condition and make them do the running then I think we can play at a higher tempo for longer."

The Australians described Sunday's match conditions as horrendous.

"It was the hardest game conditions-wise that I've ever played in, it was physically and mentally draining. It was hot," West Ham defender Lucas Neill said.

Torino midfielder Vince Grella said: "It's hard to play in these conditions and maybe we should look to keeping the ball a little bit and building up play a little slower when we've got the ball."

Middlesbrough goalkeeper Schwarzer, one of Australia's few stand-outs, revealed he lost three kilograms on Sunday.

"I lost three kilos and most of that was during the warm-up and I had to back off the warm-up because it was so harsh," he said.

"You look at Brett Emerton, Vince Grella and Jason Culina, who are the workhorses of the team and can run all day, and they were feeling the pinch as much as everyone else.