“Ah. A new season, and we have decided to scream more at the players... :) With increased skills comes an increased self-reliance, better abilitiy to do stuff and a certain lazyness... Thus, more screaming may rectify this :) Or maybe not...

The Bretonnia (our perennial home since our heroes the Ex-Pats rule in Albion) seems perfect this year. After all, I helped make it so, but anyway... No Goldlords, no Pirates and an otherwise interesting mix of teams :) I expect to be able to proceed to the play-offs, although the Icedragons and the Vagabonds may be dangerous. I also fear the Pillars. I should be able to manage the others, although the wood elves can be difficult to nail down and prevent from scoring.

Our team looks good, with two well developed skinks and a couple of well-developed saurii, and still without getting bloated... First opponent is the Predators, which we should beable to handle, even tough they have some good players. The traditional plan for beating CD teams will be employed, by attaking and hopefully eliminating their hobgoblins, paying special attention to Narakk Silverhand, their ballcarrier.

The stadium is packed (35k) and we have the fans advantage by a narrow margin, but starts kicking to the Predators offense. They are a bit slow at the start, however, so we manage shifting our defense around to fit better with the way the ball falls, and the offensive linemen are placed. Faced with this rapid change, the Prdeators acn do little about our line of scrimmage, and only managese to push some saurii backwards, while Silverhand misses the pickup. The ball is loose, and there is room on the extreme right flank to get around th Predators formation!

Winner and Booster manages to push veteran bullcentaur Redtongue towards the centre to widen the gap, and Warrior and Swimmer runs through to mark down the ball. The saurii entertain themselves with pushing and shuffling at the line of scrimmage, but the chaos dwarves stand on their feet, and little is accomplished. The Dwarves strike back though, and ravages our LOS. Idler is stunned and lightning and Fraternizer toppled, and a confused Claws can only watch the carnage. Veteran Chaos Dwarf Metalfoot is freed up and blitzes Swimmer, and sends him off the field KO'd. Warrior guards the ball,but cannot prevent Silverhand from picking it up. The skink squad tries another trick, and lines up to allow Wiggler to blitz the ballcarrier. Wiggler wrestles Silverhand to the ground, but Winner narrowly misses catching the bouncing ball, and it lands on the goalline side of the skink squad, and is hard to recover for the Predators. Metalfoot steps up to the challenge, and pushes Winner away from the ball, allowing Quickmouth to pick it up and carry it forward. Action on the LOS is furious, but also undecisive. Skilled chaos dwarves have their hands full with strong saurii, and no one seem to be able to get an advantage over the other. Scavengers have no one in position to hit Quickhand, so they instead let Wiggler cover him, while the saurii strikes back at the dwarves on the LOS. Metalfoot blitzes Wiggler away, and Quickhand advances past the saurii screen on my right flank, and Silverhand supports him, while Redtongue, Greybeard and Blackaxe make sure the saurii go down. Idler and Booster holds down the Predator blockers as best they can, screaming at Claws to break the tackles and blitz the ballcarrier. in the meantime, Ligthning, Fraternizer and Brewer pushes the Predator centre line back and opens up for Winner to run back toward his own goalline as a safety. Unfortunately, Claws got confused by all the shouting, and without him, the scavengers LOS falls apart, and Redtongue can push Idler back some steps, and allow the two hobgoblins to get away free towards the scavenger goalline. Only Wiggler is available, and he can't realistically stop two hobgoblins. Not that he doesn't try... he steps up and marks down Quickmouth, waiting nervously for Claws to recover from his confusion and blitz the balcarrier, but no, Claws is still confused. Predators dare not stall too long, and Quickmouth goes for it and scores an easy TD. 1-0 to the Predators. We are not too worried, though, as it was their offensive drive, and we still have all our players, except Swimmer who is KO'd, and almost half of the half is left. A score should be possible before halftime.

We start with a strong right formation at the LOS, and hope to advance the ball along the right sideline, but the Predators foils our plan by kicking to our left and blitzing us, dumping Brewer on his tail. We decide to shift our attack to the left, and Fraternizer sends rookie CD Darkheart off with an injury, opening the centre and allowing Idler to blitz Smokeyblaster and Warrior to run through and into a scoring position. Unfortunately, Winner misses his pickup and allows the Predators a bit of time to regroup. Burntears blitzes Warrior and knocks him out, and Lightning and Claws are down, but not out. Our saurii responds by clearing the midfield and Wiggler can advance into a scoring position while Winner hangs back to protect the ball. The Predators lets Silverhand mark down Wiggler while Burntears attempts the blitz on Winner, and bot bull cenatur and skink goes down and the ball is loose. However, breaker is nearby, and picks it up easily while Burntears and Winner are too ocupied with each other to care. He sprints up the midfield and hands it over to Wiggler, who wiggles free of Silverhands tackle and runs in the TD, while our saurii hits whatever is in their reach, with little effect. We have equalized, and manage to hurt one Predator, while still having only one of our own KO'd and no one injured. And we start with the ball in the second half. Seldom has a game looked better at halftime!

We start second half with the same right-slanted formation, and this time we are quick enough about it to avoid the blitz. We pushes the centre line backwards, while Claws and Brewer holds up Ironfist and Redtongue on our right flank. Winner again fails to pick up the ball, however, and again the Predators can regroup. They surround Claws with the hobgoblin safeties, but Ironfist can't get him down, only push him at little backwards. The Preadtors also shore up the centre, but their attempt at rolling it up fails when Smokeyblaster falls on his face after trying to blitz Idler. Instead, the saurii at the centerline bring the whole Preadtor centreline down, and with help from Warrior and Wiggler, Brewer pushes Redtongue off while Claws KO's Quickmouth. Breaker is sent to help Winner, but they still can't get that ball off the ground...

Predator revenge is close at hand though, as Redtongue topples Warrior, allowing Silverhand to KO Wiggler with a blitz and give a helping hand to Ironfist, and Brewer is sent off with an injury after Ironfist piles up on his leg. They also send their last reserves forward, and Greybeard gods to support the centreline while Burntears rushes toward the two skinks struggling with the ball. With our right sideline advance plan effectively stymied by Ironfist and Redtongue, we shift to the left flank, and Claws breaks away and blindsides the Predator centreline while Protector, Fraternizer, Idler and Lightning do their vey best to contain the centreline. Booser and Breaker contains Burntears, and Warrior breaks away from Ironfist and Redtongue. Winner finally picks up the ball and advances on the left side. With three Predators displaced on the far right, we have local superiority and should still be able to handle this.

The Predators have other plans, however, and Redtongue sprints across the field to help Metalfoot with Claws, and Metalfoot shatters Claws collar bone, sending him off the field for the match. Silverhand also reaches across, sending Warrior on his tail as he passes, and suddenly, local superiority at the centreline is totally lost as the remaining four saurii battles 8 Predators, with Ironfist soon to join them. The saurii do their best however, and manges to push the centreline a bit backwards, while Booster takes the opportunity to smash Burntears neck and send him off. Numbers halfway into the half are now down to 8 scavengers vs 9 Predators. We still hold the ball, however. Aggresive Preadtors push back at the centreline, and Redtongue and Brokenleg are even close to Winner. We move Booster to the right again, and Protector stuns Silverhand and Fraternizer pushes Blackaxe back. Suddenly, there is a wide open field to the right, and Winner dodges away into it. Blindsided at last, the Predators are desperate and frenetic activity at the centreline ends in Greybeard knocking Lightning out while Redtongue and Metalfoot scrambles deep in a desperate attempt to reach Winner. This is when we try to be cute... to our shame, we order Winner to hold back and stall, and let Warrior (sidestepper) mark Redtongue and Booster mark Metalfoot. Then Protector blitzes Redtongue and pushes him back against Booster. However, Redtongue breaks free and gets around the flank to blitz Winner. Down he goes, and ends up stunned while Redtongue picks up the loose ball! WE are still optimistic, as the rest of the Predators are still blindsided, so we send Breaker for support and let Protector blitz Redtongue. The brave bullcentaur clings to the ball, however, and is only pushed backwards, and when Warrior tries to block him, he slips and goes down with a hurt arm. The Predators rookie Hobgoblin Rednose breaks free, and even though the pass from Redtongue is a bit wide, scavengers have no one close to the ball,and Idler as last saurii tries to evade two chaos dwarves, he is easily tripped by Smokeyblaster. Rednose need only pick up the loose ball and run it in for the winning TD. 2-1 Predators in what must be called at least a slight surprise, but the Predators stayed in there and never gave up, and got their reward for it.

Starting with a loss is of course not a catastrophe, but we had this game in our hand, and must ourself take a lot of the blame for the loss. Anyway, as no scavenger was seriously injured and we developed a new skill for team captain Fraternizer, we are looking forward to meeting the Norse in the second round.









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