While Australia won that match by a comfortable 2-0 scoreline, and thus qualified for Saturday night's Asian Cup final against South Korea in Sydney, the Socceroos were decidedly flat in the second half, especially in midfield.

Coach Ange Postecoglou privately emphasised to his players the value of possession after the match and Leckie said the players realised that if the same mistakes were made against South Korea, they'd be punished on the grandest stage.

"It was more of a counter-attacking game and when we won the ball, we were trying to get into small pockets in the middle of the park where the first pass could be straight to us. Then we could turn and run at them," Leckie said. "But we were winning the ball and almost 20 seconds or so later losing the ball again. So at half-time we discussed once we win the ball not to bomb on all the time, to try and hold the ball more and get them running. It didn't work as well as we planned but we ground out a result."

Despite looking comfortable for large portions against the Emirates, Leckie said they would need to "be more clinical" in attack on Saturday night.

"We were probably the best side on the night, we just couldn't put the chances away so what we need to make sure is to create chances and keep possession and keep them moving," he said. "It's better that we lost to them in the group stage. We just can't let that happen again in the final. Both teams know a lot about each other. We've just got to be clinical and take our chances."

While the Socceroos have enjoyed an incredible spread of goal scorers in this tournament, the FC Ingolstadt striker is yet to open his account this month - although he isn't concerned.

"Now we have 10 different goal scorers we're not just dangerous in general game play but in set pieces as well," he said. "When things aren't going too good in a game there's been a number of players who've been able to step up. That's one of the big perks this team has."

Leckie's fellow forward Tomi Juric said the Socceroos felt they had unfinished business with the South Koreans after going down 1-0 in Brisbane in their final group stage match.

"It's definitely something we won't take lightly, this game. Because of them beating us in the last round of the group stage, we owe them a bit of payback," he said. "We're very positive and confident going into the next one [game] hopefully we can get the result that everyone would like."

While Juric said it would be "very special" to play arguably the biggest match in Australia's football history in his home city, he wasn't sure how the players would handle the intense media spotlight.

"We worked really hard throughout the tournament to get to where we are now and it still hasn't sunk in yet. But I'm sure the next couple of days we've got to rest and prepare and I'm sure it'll sink in by then," he said. "We'll just have to wait and see [how they handle the public interest]. But I'm pretty positive we'll get our head around it pretty quickly. We'll go into the game pretty positive and looking forward to it.

"We're hoping to play some of our good football that we've been playing throughout the tournament."