Irish qualify by stroke of Lithuanian hard luck

As Irish manager Denise McCarthy put it, "it would be extremely inappropriate to celebrate". Defender Pamela Magill admitted to being "numbed by it all". Her Pegasus team-mate Karen Humphreys, meanwhile, did not carry the expression of a player who had just learnt her country had qualified for the World Cup finals, as they had. In fact, she seemed positively dazed by the morning's events and could only speak of her sympathy for the Lithuanians. "For God's sake, how must they feel," she asked.

You'll travel far, one suspects, to happen upon a worse case of ineptitude among sporting officials, one that led to an enraged Lithuania withdrawing from the World Cup Qualifiers in France yesterday, thus securing Ireland's berth in next year's finals.

Saturday's play-off, from which the winners would go through to the World Cup, had started well for Lithuania. They took the lead in the 18th minute before Ireland's player-of-the-match, Daphne Sixsmith, levelled on 25 minutes from a penalty corner. Dalia Petrutyte restored Lithuania's advantage a minute before half-time, but Lynsey McVicker equalised four minutes from time when she tucked away the rebound from a corner strike. Extra time failed to produce a "golden goal" winner, so the tie went to strokes.

Of the 22 strokes taken, only 11 were converted, with Lithuania scoring six. While the "victors" celebrated, Ireland lodged an appeal, pointing out that a basic rule had been broken in the course of the shoot-out (Section 11.4 of the Tournament Rules, to be precise: "The team whose player has taken the first penalty stroke of the first series shall not take the first penalty stroke of the second series" (a "series" being five strokes for each team).

Because Irish captain Rachael Kohler had taken the first stroke of the competition, Lithuania should have taken the 11th, by which time the teams were tied 4-4. When Kohler was summoned to take the 11th, she politely reminded the umpires of the rules.

They consulted with the officials on the technical bench, who then frantically leafed through the rule book searching for the section with which they should, patently, have already been familiar.

Having failed to find Section 11.4 (easily spotted under Penalty Strokes), they told Kohler to take the next stroke. Her effort was saved, as were the next seven in the shoot-out, before Ausra Janutaite fired high to Tara Browne's right to clinch victory for Lithuania. Or so they thought.

Almost two-and-a-half hours later the verdict on the appeal came through: the tournament director, Claire Peeters-Monseu, decided "that the protest has been properly declared and is considered valid. The second series of the penalty stroke competition has to be replayed (after the Scotland v India game)".

Lithuania, though, made it clear they would not entertain the prospect of replaying the shoot-out, having already phoned their government and Olympic Committee to inform them that they were through to the World Cup finals.

A thunderstorm midway through the Scotland v India game resulted in the "replay" being deferred until yesterday morning, but the Lithuanians failed to appear while the Irish team waited at the ground. The International Hockey Federation (FIH) then announced that, having refused to turn up, Lithuania "is considered as having withdrawn from the classification matches".

The Irish squad then hopped on a bus for Abbeville, 25 miles down the road, where they were to play Scotland in the largely meaningless fifth-sixth play-off (which they won with a McVicker golden goal). And there was the Lithuania squad waiting on the pitch, preparing for a tie they believed they had earned the right to play. They remained there for almost an hour, delaying the start of the match.

The Lithuanians, who refused to talk to the press, may yet take the FIH to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.

Ireland, meanwhile, have been criticised privately by a number of FIH officials, one of whom accused them of not accepting the outcome of the strokes' competition in a "sporting manner" and in a spirit of fair play.

Nonsense. That is a feeble attempt by the FIH to deflect from their incompetence by scapegoating Ireland. Kohler gave the officials the chance to get their decision right and they failed. "The protest we made was legal, but sporting-wise, of course, we are not very comfortable with it," said Irish coach Riet Kuper. "But the rules are the rules and we were within our rights to point out that they had been broken.

"Of course we feel for Lithuania, our hearts go out to them, but their management made a big mistake by not turning up for the new set of strokes. We cannot help that, that's not our fault. We're through to the World Cup and we deserve to be there, but this is not the way we wanted to do it."