Athens: End of story. It is as bad as it gets. Sure it was a last-second goal by New Zealand, but the fact remains that the eight-time Olympic champions are out of running yet again for any colour of metal, and the buck passes quickly for this 1-2 defeat. India are now in fourth position in pool B and even New Zealand have a chance of making it to the last four.

[Meanwhile, according to a late night report by PTI, a seven-member jury of the organising committee would give a verdict on Sunday whether to allow the goal that gave New Zealand the win. This follows after India made a fresh appeal against the decision of tournament director Wiert Doyer.

According to secretary of the Indian Hockey Federation K. Jyothikumaran, the Indians have appealed against the decision of Doyer of The Netherlands.

“We have already deposited 500 euros again and hope to get the verdict by Sunday,” Jyothikumaran said on Saturday.]

Phillip Burrows put the New Zealanders ahead off a field goal a minute after the barren first half. Dhanraj Pillay converted a penalty corner to bring India back to parity in the 61st minute, while Hayden Shaw’s goal just on the hooter killed India’s chances. It was a very close decision and India did put in a protest, saying the goal was beyond regulation time.

That protest was dismissed by tournament director Wiert Doyer of The Netherlands. In a statement, Doyer said: “The decision to award the goal was the ‘decision of an umpire during a match.’ I am firmly of the view that the match had not ended. Accordingly, regulation 18.4 prohibits me from considering the protest.”

There was little by way of explanation coming forth for this debacle, not from Gerhard Rach, not from anybody who mattered. The matter of concern remained why New Zealand’s fourth penalty corner goal was allowed. Not why the Indian defence allowed those penalty corners to happen in the first place.

“In our opinion the game had finished. The players were off the field and one umpire re-started the game. I usually never complain against the umpires but this time I don’t know why they were cheating us,” Rach said. “Maybe they would repeat this penalty corner ten times until they scored,” said a visibly irritated Rach. “Some day the umpires will see the video and maybe they will see their mistakes.”

The last second goal was interesting. As the hooter went off there was a penalty corner awarded to New Zealand, the fourth as Hayden Shaw drag flick hit and Indian foot. That umpire had ruled a 16-yard hit, but as the New Zealanders protested the other umpire said it should be a penalty corner. The goal came through.

The passing game ended with poor trappings, despite the apparent Indian dominance. The cheering crowd coupled with the heat and humidity did not make things any better for New Zealand. Playing their first match not under lights here, India may have been recovering from a change.

A minute after the break Burrows put New Zealand ahead scores after Simon Towns found space on the right to prompt to a free Burrows in the circle. His deflection over Indian ‘keeper Adrian D’Souza was in.

In the 60th minute India worked into attack mode and pushed into the rival defence, winning a penalty corner. Dhanraj Pillay finally made his presence felt when he scored off a simple deflection after an Arjun Halappa drag-flick.

The game went onto high pitch, but the ending was anything but happy for India. The huge expense of Arizona and Germany and Holland and where not was so fruitless, one refuses to get the logic behind all this.

Rach conceded that it was faulty defending. “We took some risks and opened our defence. The New Zealand team probably followed more clever tactics. We controlled the game, but the players were tired and unable to achieve high speed in the field,” he said.

New Zealand coach Kevin Towns said little on the umpire’s decision on the fourth penalty corner.