Ireland 1 Belgium 2
Frustration abounded for the Irish men as they fell in fractious fashion 2-1 to hosts Belgium in their final World League Round 3 group match in Antwerp.
The result leaves Ireland facing world number one side Australia on Wednesday in the tournament’s quarter-final, a tie which would bring Olympic qualification if won.
But Craig Fulton’s side were left to grate their teeth over five video referrals that went against them, at least three of which were highly questionable and played a big role in the outcome.
Nonetheless, it was a brave performance from Ireland against the world number four team, surviving 19 minutes worth of suspensions.
Loick Luypaert put Belgium in front from one such review, earning a penalty corner which the defender fired home. Shane O’Donoghue equalised soon after with a low push that broke through Vincent Vanasch’s attempted stick save.
From there, Ireland defended like demons with David Harte in superb form between the posts. And they looked well set to have at winning the tie with two minutes to go when Peter Caruth was cleaned out by Arthur van Doren.
A video review from Gary Simmons, bafflingly, suggested Caruth had fouled the defender.
Seconds later, John-John Dohmen snatched the winner, scoring into an open goal when Fulton swapped out his goalkeeper for an extra outfield player as they sought to push for a last-ditch winner.
Peter Caruth summed the feeling up, saying: “We are gutted; we played very well but the big decisions just didn’t go our way. I’m very proud of our team and we nearly nicked a result.”
The problems started early for Ireland. Conor Harte went off with a suspected broken collar bone inside five minutes after an awkward collision with Amaury Keusters.
Belgium were making most of the play, enjoying the guts of possession, but got precious little change from the Irish defence. The video controversy started in the first quarter when Belgium attacked down the right wing.
The ball popped up off Thomas Briels’ stick into Eugene Magee’s body. One Belgian called for a video review but promptly attempted to retract his claims. On viewing the replay on the big screen, his side set up for an Irish free, their body language suggesting there was no chance of success as it looked as if Briels had made the ball dangerous.
Simmons saw otherwise. Penalty corner was the decision that came back with Belgium retaining their right to refer. From their next video review, Luypaert opened the scoring.
O’Donoghue’s leveller eased the feeling of grievance for a while, making it 1-1 at half-time. But the feeling returned when Paul Gleghorne was given a ten-minute suspension for an off-the-ball incident – there looked to be little in the incident with the on-field umpire Peter Wright dismissing it as a simple collision but Simmons saw otherwise.
That suspension reduced Ireland to eight players with Chris Cargo and Ronan Gormley already in the bin.They rode out that spell of short-handedness to keep alive hopes of a win that would lift them up the group table.
In so doing, they gained some late traction with a couple of speedy counter-attacks. But, from the pick of them, the video umpire was called on one last time. He felt Caruth was in the wrong when he beat van Doren for pace down the right wing at the death to deny Ireland a corner and a chance of a winner.
Belgium countered, scored and sent Ireland into the toughest possible quarter-final bout.
Ireland: D Harte, J Jackson, R Gormley, M Watt, C Cargo, A Sothern, P Caruth, S O'Donoghue, M Darling, P Gleghorne, C Harte
Subs: J Bell, S Dowds, E Magee, K Shimmins, D Carlisle, K Good, D Fitzgerald.
Belgium: V Vanasch, A vanDroen, J-J Dohmen, F van Aubel, S Dockier, E Stockbroekx, F Denayer, LLuypaert, T Boon, J Truyens, E van Strydonck
Subs: D Thiery, A Keusters,G Boccard, T Briels, S Gougnard, T Cosyns, J Gucasoff.
Umpires: J Wright, G Greenfield.
