“Grotty Little Tournament Qualifiers 2nd round.

Didn't have time to write this report until several days later, so this is just for me and my esteemed opponent. :-)

I have to admit it, I looked at spacebobo's win record and thought that this would be easy. My plan was to keep an open style of match with fast plays, expecting spacebobo to make more mistakes that way. City was also the bashier team, especially with Horkon, giving me another reason to try and play fast TDs. Spacebobo played much better than expected, so there was underestimation from my part.

Handicaps against were Bribe the Ref and Iron Man (on a Witch). Both teams brought a wizard and City brought Horkon. Horkon was effective indeed, causing two BH.

City received first, but Umbrae could knock their ball-carrier down on T1, as he was placed one step to close to our +MA Blitzer. City got the ball back though and started to move upfield. Umbrae hit the ball-carrier with 2d in T3, with 1d twice and 2d in T4 and with 2d in T5 without popping the ball. This was partly our own fault, as our tacklers were in bad positions. 0-1 City.

Umbrae followed the plan and scored back in two turns without too much trouble. 1-1 with one turn left on the first half.

And what a turn! Both teams tried to take out some players and City got the best of it. The end result was that both Umbrae DPs were lost (one BH, the other sent off) for one City tackler KO. A harsh blow to Umbrae, especially losing Inci.

In the second half came the disaster, of which the coach himself was entirely responsible. Umbrae set up for another two turn TD, but failed the long pass (it was a 4+ actually, the Umbrae Thrower doesn't have Accurate). We could have avoided the long pass with a hand-off to Sonleth and a short pass though, so that was bad play. (Sonleth marked a Blitzer instead.) OK, it was bad luck that the Thrower fumbled the ball into the crowd and that they threw it so far, but Nuffle is supposed to punish bad play, so... City just had to make a few 2+ rolls to score. 1-2 City.

Next drive was according to plan again, although the defense was tighter and forced Umbrae to take three turns to score. 2-2 with three turns left.

City caged the ball with a staggered cage, expecting a fireball. The Umbrae wizard got a chance at a 50/50 lightning bolt instead (a player next to the ball-carrier) and it hit the right player. Sonleth (AG6 Sure Hands) was in range to get the ball even though it stayed within the cage. But... First action was a doubleskulls! Umbrae badly needed that RR to get the ball safe. This made us play conservatively and use our blitz on the only City player in range of our end zone instead of one of the cage players. And this of course made Sonleth fumble the pass out of the cage. There was still a chance however, as City was out of position and could not reform the cage as desired. Umbrae got a 2d (with RR) hit on the ball-carrier in T16 that didn't pop the ball, and City walked in the winning TD. 2-3 game over.

I lost this match on bad play, no doubt about it. If I'd kept my tacklers in better positions on the first drive I would probably have stolen the ball with all those chances. And if I'd made a hand-off instead of that long pass I'd probably have scored 2-1 instead of it going 1-2. Bad play indeed. Still, I had a lot of chances to steal the ball on your drives and you had none on mine, so with just a little better luck I'd have won anyway. Ah well, that's how it goes.

GG spacebobo, you play much better than your win percentage leads one to believe... :-) See you around.

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