But Wales were no pushovers and when they won their second penalty corner, Furlong made no mistake this time around and his expert low flick into the Indian goal reduced the deficit to one.
Two minutes later Wales were in dreamland as another penalty corner effort from Furlong was initially saved, before the ball was played out to Jacob Draper to lift the ball in for the equaliser.
The goals were the first this Indian side had conceded all tournament.
It set up a thrilling final quarter but it was India who rose to the challenge. Reynolds-Cotterill was powerless to keep out Akashdeep Singh’s world class reverse stick strike and India led once again.
Still Wales refused to give up. They asked India questions right to the end and brought off keeper Reynolds-Cotterill in favour of an extra outfield player in search for what have been an historic equaliser and their first point at this level.
But that opened the door for India who took advantage of Wales’ open goal to add a fourth with seconds to go.
There were fireworks at the finish around the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, but the feeling for the hosts would have been as much relief as celebration.
Wales head coach Danny Newcombe:
“The key frustration for me is that if we’d played like in all three [pool matches], one of them could’ve gone our way. The key learning for our next tournament is we can’t wait two games to turn up. It’s not acceptable.
“The other key thing is we take the momentum from today and we go and turn that into two results in the next stage. For us it’s all about finishing ninth, which for us in our first World Cup would be a huge achievement.
Gareth Furlong, Wales goalscorer:
“We were a little bit disappointed after the first two games that we probably hadn’t given the best account of ourselves. The intent was there to go out and match them for as long as possible, which I think we did. Obviously a little bit disappointed with the final result but the performance was significantly better than the previous two games.”
