Australia coach Guus Hiddink admits he is at a loss to understand some of Graham Poll's decisions in last night' World Cup clash with Croatia.

Rated at one point as a plausible candidate to referee the final in Berlin on July 9, Poll instead looks set to be dispatched on an early flight home after his woeful performance in Stuttgart.

The Tring official not only showed Josip Simunic three yellow cards but missed two apparently certain Australian penalties, first when Simunic wrestled Mark Viduka to the floor, then as Stjepan Tomas handled for a second time.

Thankfully, Croatia were unable to capitalise on Simunic's red card reprieve by grabbing a winner which could have plunged the entire tournament into chaos given Australia's obvious right to a re-match.

But, while a place in the last 16 has allowed Hiddink to look at the situation more dispassionately, he cannot understand what Poll was thinking.

"At least I can look at the situation in a slightly softer way," said Hiddink.

"Nevertheless, there were some instances you look at and think 'How can that happen?'.

"The foul on Mark Viduka was an obvious one and also the yellow cards.

"At the end though, we got through which is the main thing."

Meanwhile, Hiddink confirmed Harry Kewell should be available for Monday's encounter with Italy in Kaiserslautern.

The Liverpool winger missed training on Friday after completing the full 90 minutes on Thursday, scoring the goal which took Australia through.

Kewell is yet to fully recover from the Achilles injury which threatened his participation in the tournament but Hiddink insists the player is only suffering from stiffness.

"Harry did not have the proper preparation and we are trying to build him up slowly," said Hiddink.

"Normally, I would only have expected Harry to play for an hour last night but there were exceptional circumstances we had to deal with.

"There is no big problem. He is just recovering a little bit. He will be fine for Monday."