Asia's big guns secure convincing World Cup wins

By Martin Petty

BANGKOK (Reuters) - The big hitters of Asian football got their 2010 World Cup qualifying campaigns off to a flying start on Wednesday with Australia, Japan and South Korea securing sizable wins.

But there were sluggish starts for the top Gulf teams, with Iran held to a disappointing goalless draw with part-timers Syria and Asian Cup holders Iraq sharing the points in their home Group One match with China.

Top-ranked Australia looked to have put last year's miserable Asian Cup debut behind them when they trounced Qatar 3-0 in Melbourne to make the early Group One headway.

South Korea, Asia's most successful World Cup team, began their path towards their seventh successive finals with a 4-0 win over unfancied Turkmenistan, while Japan froze out their opponents from tropical Thailand with a 4-1 win in icy Saitama.

Australia relied on their Europe-based players to tie up their match inside the first 33 minutes, with goals from Karlsruhe striker Josh Kennedy, Everton's Tim Cahill and Palermo's Mark Bresciano delighting new coach Pim Verbeek and the near-capacity crowd of 50,969.

"We played a fantastic first half. We created chances, we scored great goals, we never gave them one chance," Verbeek told reporters. "I'm very proud of what they did."

Thailand were given little chance in the falling snow against Japan, who went ahead on 21 minutes when Yasuhito Endo converted a superb curling free kick from 30 metres.

Japanese celebrations were cut short seconds later when pacy striker Teerathep Winothai stunned the home side by equalising with a stinging long-range effort.