Ireland lift themselves for another try

You'd want to have a cold heart not to feel for the weary, dejected Irish players as they trudged off the pitch in the pouring rain at the end of yesterday's 1-1 draw with Ukraine, a result that means they must beat either Lithuania or Scotland in Saturday's play-offs to qualify for the World Cup finals.

The point was enough for Ukraine to take second, behind England, in the pool and book their passage to the finals while India beat Ireland to third place on goal difference.

Within minutes of full-time the players were sufficiently upbeat to talk confidently about their prospects on Saturday. "We'll do it, I know we will," insisted captain Rachael Kohler, "we're definitely, definitely good enough."

There were no hard-luck stories yesterday and no complaints about the result - in fact it was a highly creditable one against one of the tournament's classier, if a little erratic, teams. But at the end Ireland were two points short of what was required to finish in the top two in the pool.

Ukraine captain Tetyana Kobzenko gave her team the lead three minutes in to the second half, cracking a penalty corner strike in to the bottom right corner of the goal, and although Jill Orbinson levelled the scores 10 minutes later, from Ireland's seventh corner of the game, they never came close to snatching the winner, even though they had the bulk of the possession in the closing stages.

Ireland's most productive spell, during which they scored their goal, came when Kobzenko and Zhanna Savenko's expulsions to the "sin-bin" overlapped for six minutes, reducing Ukraine to nine players.

Kobzenko had persistently failed to keep the required distance from Irish free-hits, while Savenko was out of the game for 16 minutes after she recklessly, if accidentally, hit sweeper Arlene Boyles over the eye with her stick in the 44th minute.

Boyles has been ruled out of the rest of the tournament because of concussion. Lynsey McVicker is also nursing a bruised elbow after being struck by a carelessly lifted ball from Marina Litvinchuk.

For much of the second half Ukraine packed their circle to protect the point they needed for qualification.

Daphne Sixsmith and Boyles both had first-half corner strikes well saved by the Ukrainian goalkeeper while Boyles hit another shot just wide of the left post.

Tara Browne rescued her team by twice thwarting the dazzling Kobzenko and Fyeridye Bilyalova, whose penalty corner strike she saved.

IRELAND: T Browne, A Boyles, J Burke, L Caulfield, R Kohler (capt), L Lee, P Magill, C McMahon, L McVicker, J Orbinson, D Sixsmith. Subs used: E Cregan, K Humphreys, C O'Brien, C McKean.