France and Ireland joined England in qualifying for the men’s World Cup as they won their semi-finals in Chile to guarantee a top-three finish in their qualifier tournaments.

The French won the first encounter, defeating Poland 4-2, holding off their rivals after a strong fightback as John-John Dohmen’s side built a 3-0 lead.

Timothée Clément opened the scoring, quickly added to by Stanislas Branicki and another from Xavier Esmenjuad.

Tomasz Bembenek found the back of the net from a penalty corner to cut the gap before half-time and Wojciech Rutkowski’s corner follow-up somehow scrambled over the line for 3-2.

But the game was settled by Corentin Sellier’s back-post finish to ensure the French victory, leaving Poland to battle with Wales for the final automatic World Cup spot.

France’s François Goyet was named player of the match. “We are really happy with the qualification to [the World Cup],” said Goyet. “That was the main objective, so we are really happy about it.”

Ireland’s men scored four classy goals to defeat Wales 4-0 with Johnny Lynch central to their sublime performance.

Lynch dove onto a delightful Jeremy Duncan pass to put them in front in the second minute and they were in control from there on.

A lovely passing sequence was finished by Louis Rowe for 2-0 at half-time before Lynch’s deflection and some sweet interplay finished off by Matthew Nelson made it 4-0.

 “We’re absolutely ecstatic,” said Lynch. “We came here with one goal, and it was to qualify for the World Cup and we’ve done that, so that’s achievement number one, but now we want to go on and win the tournament.”

England’s world ranking meant they were already assured of a place at the World Cup no matter the outcome of their game with Malaysia; they duly won 7-1 to put them through to the final in Egypt where they will play Pakistan.