The Irish and Lithuanian women's hockey teams will have to wait until the middle of next week before learning which of them is automatically through to November's World Cup finals after putting their cases to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in London yesterday.
In a hearing that lasted five hours the sport's governing body, the International Hockey Federation (FIH), made no attempt to defend its Disciplinary Commission's (DC) ruling that over-turned the decision of the tournament director at September's World Cup Qualifier and required Ireland to attempt to 're-qualify' for the finals.
"They didn't just sit it out a little bit at the hearing, they sat back totally," said Irish Hockey Association president Joan McCloy. "They made no case at all, they were completely neutral about it."
The FIH's reluctance to defend its DC's stance could merely indicate that it is content to allow CAS rule on the dispute, but also adds weight to reports that the federation's Executive Board believed its DC had erred when it ruled against Ireland and Claire Peeters-Monseu, the Qualifier's tournament director, in its November hearing.
"We gave it our best shot, we supported the stance the team took at the time and have continued to do throughout, so as far as the association is concerned we have done our best to get the girls reinstated in the World Cup - now it's up to CAS and we will have to abide by their decision," said McCloy.
"There was a general agreement before the hearing that it was a hard call, we just didn't know how it would go.
"Having said that, I was personally very upbeat after our own submission, especially after our two witnesses, Rachael Kohler (Irish captain) and Denise McCarthy (Irish manager), did excellently, particularly under cross-examination.
"We were quite confident after that but of course the counter-arguments then came from Lithuania and it was impossible to know how they were being received by the arbitrators, so that's where the doubt comes in.
" Our legal representative, Paul Sreenan, couldn't have done any better, he was superb, but now we just have to wait and see how CAS views the case."
