CELTIC boss Gordon Strachan has admitted he stepped in to block Scott McDonald from joining the Socceroos for this week's China game.
McDonald was one of several key players missing from the Socceroos squad for the vital World Cup qualifier.
But every other high profile absentee either missed their club's preceeding week's game or was substituted with an obvious injury early in their match.
McDonald though appeared surprised when he was replaced over an hour into their game against Gretna having already scored in the 3-0 romp.
He appeared to mouth to the bench 'who me?' in disbelief when his number was shown as the substitute but was later said to have a calf strain which ruled him out of the Australia game.
Celtic this weekend have a potential season decider match with Old Firm rival Rangers - and McDonald is now expected to start for his club.
He endured a whole regular training session with his club team-mates yesterday ahead of the Rangers match and showed no signs of the injury.
Now Strachan has admitted McDonald would have been fine to play for Australia...if they'd been playing in Scotland.
"Scott McDonald trained and was the one with the least problems," he told Glasgow's Herald newspaper.
"My concern with him was how much worse it would be by sitting on a plane for that length of time. If the game was close by, say Hampden, he would have been fine."
But he insisted he was not interested in getting into the politics of international call-ups and call-offs after several of the club's other players were also called up to play for Scotland by new boss George Burley in their midweek friendly against Croatia.
He added: "The manager decides what the team is. I will leave that up to George Burley.
"I am only interested in getting a team out to play a football game. I am not into the politics of football. There are better politicians than me.
"It's not my right to tell a Scotland manager what he does. I'm just quite happy that four of our players picked up more caps because it's nice to have loads of caps.
"I have seen players go on international duty feeling low and come back better and I have seen players go out feeling great and come back low. It does not matter how you feel, you will be up for an Old Firm game."
