As the bewildered and emotional Harry Kewell was led down the players tunnel I felt sick to my stomach. Although he'd started the match strongly and looked thrilled to be finally on the pitch, it was as if he'd suddenly been swept away by the tide of  hysteria that had engulfed the Australian media in the previous week.

Now we would never know, never get the chance to see what he might have been capable of in those glorious opportunities only World Cups can offer. Is there one football fan in Australia who does not now and far into the future feel Harry's pain ?

Losing Timmy was a tragedy, but this red card took on the scale of a national disaster. Just when Kewell was finally ready to face his critics and write his name in lights once more, a ludicrously poor refereeing decision robbed him of his rightful place in Socceroos history. It was far too horrible to be a co-incidence.

Call me paranoid, but as soon as I saw the ref and two linesmen were Italian I knew we were in for a rough night. When it inevitably happened after such a fantastic opening 20 minutes you could have heard my screams of fury in Rustenberg. Ghana had a goal through a handball for the second time, Italians were ruining our World Cup for the second time and worst of all, we were stuck with the world's most boring football commentators : Muskie and Bashir.

I found myself longing for Simon Hill's lame puns and Andy Harper's excitedly mangled metaphors; anything to raise a laugh or reflect the emotional intensity of the moment. Instead we got mumbling, pointless stats and awkward silences.

But there was nothing awkward about the Socceroos response to losing their star striker. Pim had thankfully got over his bout of recklessness and allowed them to play to their strengths and they looked like team we know and love. To the great shame of his detractors, Holman scored an early goal and every single player gave his all, with Australia looking so dominant in the second half that we very nearly scored the winner. It was a case of the fewer the men, the greater the share of honour as they played with absolute determination till the final whistle.

In every way, Australia deserved to win, but very early on, the referee had decided otherwise. Apart from Pim's brain snap in our first game, Group D has been sadly characterised by the unattractive starring role played by referees.

This is simply not acceptable.

None of the four games played so far in this group has shown significant signs of aggro or dangerous play, yet the red and yellows have flown. In Serbia's match against Germany, the ref dished out a yellow every 5 minutes until finally sending off Klose for a second very soft challenge. Within seconds, Serbia caught Germany off guard to score the game's only goal.

Bizarrely, the referee later failed to send off a Serbian player for a deliberate hand ball in the box which was far less contentious than the "eyes-shut" Kewell incident. If the World Cup referees have been told to get tough, fine, but their 'toughness' seems to be incredibly inconsistent.

Roberto Rossetti saw fit to send off Kewell yet he failed to send off Addy for a studs up challenge on Bresciano.  There are only two possible explanations for such blatant inconsistency : incompetence or bias. Neither belongs at the World Cup yet there seems to be no general outcry about it, it's just "bad luck".

I can't help but wonder why Australia have had to deal with such "bad luck" at consecutive World Cups.  Is this FIFA's way of telling us "be grateful you got here, stop expecting so much ?  Hey, just suck it up and stop whining and we'll give you 2022 as compensation."  Or do refs simply treat us harshly because of some unconscious bias against New World football ?

I thought about all this for hours after watching the two emotionally draining Group D matches. There were tears and bitterness but no clear conclusions. Ghana may get through to the Round of 16 without scoring a goal from open play because of "good luck" but it's far more likely that Germany will recover their confidence and crush them as they crushed Australia.

Serbia may shut us down as they successfully shut down Germany (respect to Antic for his tactical brilliance) or we might get "lucky" by finally seeing a ref's decision go our way.

One thing is certain : Australia have shown they have fighting spirit to burn and with Cahill back there is no doubt they will fight to the end. Whether it's enough to get them through seems far less important than to stand up and reaffirm our pride in Australian football.