“Looked good coming into the match. I was one Krox short, but had better skinks and one Saurus with the crucial tackle skill (to destroy skinks). Figured that if I could keep on holding at least some of his skinks off the pitch and holding an even score on lost sauruses, my chances were pretty good, despite lizvis being a much better coach. Expected a 60-40% in my favour, but a tough and tight game.

Turned out to be exactly as expected. lizvis got the fans with him (FAME+2) and I started with the ball. Struggled with scoring and played badly enough for him to be able to crowd-surf two of my sauruses, but in the middle of the half, after changing my game plan twice, and losing Magalhaes to a skink collison, I finally got around his flank and Leiv Eiriksson could score in turn 5.

As he went forward, he exposed his skink for the final run when another skink, who was supposed to flank him stumbled and fell. Globetrotter was on hand to blitz the skink, and he never managed to repair the situation. Used a nifty trick to pop the ball loose though, but the saurus couldn't catch the scoring handover.

My babes ocouldn't revive the KO'd skink, so I faced a second half with two players down. He scored predictably in round 5, and could have stalled longer, as my defense was out of order and another skink KO'd. Got both my skinks back though, so the final part of the half would be played 10 against 11, and with me having 3 re-rolls, and lizvis only 1. A good chance, but I blew it by advancing on only one flank and the defense job turned out to be child's play for such an experienced coach. Got one of his skinks out with a KO though, and he chose to use his apo to handle an injury on a Saurus. Cost me all my re-rolls, though.

Overtime thus started with 10 vs 10, and he with 1 re-roll left and I none. He won the coin toss, and even though I was lucky on the ensuing pitch invasion (3 players stunned vs 2 from his team), I was pretty much certain that he would easily carry this off. The travellers rose to the occasion, though, and finally my tactic of hitting his skinks started to pay off. Two of his skinks disappeared quickly, and a Saurus was lost far away from the action, and suddenly I had local superiority in numbers (10 vs 7) with no re-rolls on either side and half of overtime to go. He chose to try for the goalline, but his last remaining skink stumbled on a GFI (how suprising... why do that always happen when you try to score?). Out of the blue comes Leiv Eiriksson, he races to the ball, picks it up (3+) and passes (5+) to Barents, and we even manage to send the Krox out KO'd, and suddenly the game looks very nice indeed :) He plans a Blitz, but is tempted to do a 2-dice block first, which ends with a Both Down result and I can take over. An easy hand-over to Cristobal Colon, and all I needed to do was to protect Colon for the next round until he could score :)

Got more fans and enough money to buy a krox, so watch out Pacers... we're coming :)

Good play, lizvis, and a very tight game. I learnt some more about the strengths and weaknesses of lizzies from you, but you're maybe a little too eager to block? Anyway, we'll meet again :) See you around :)



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