“Final day of the regular season, and we need a win to get to the play-offs. Homefield advantage, and an opponent that is new to the conference this season. An opponent with no tackles to handle my skinks, but a lot of hard-hitting bruisers. And then of course the able ballcarrier Crima Clovenhoof, who even if hit often regnereta and return to the field in eth next drive... Yet, I think I can beat this team if I can give as good as I get in the casualty department, and his rotters are fragile and not too well armoured. And then, if the Vagabonds get at least 1 point against the 'Dragons, I'll be through to the play-offs. I'm an optimist...

We kick to the Wasters, and start in our usual wedge formation. The Wasters clump together in the middle, with Crima with the ball, due to a wide kick. They stun Brewer on the line, and then go wide right with their two pestigors to protect Crima, who is at midfield. Rixran Rottenhand, a well known scoundrel at fouling, tries his tricks, but is immediately banned by the referee. We do nothing unconventional, but line our skinks up in front of the most forward pestigor and then blitz the poor sucker and stuns him. Fraternizer and Protector topples Dermix and threatens the ballcarrier and Lightning topples Grakk. His right-side advance has been stopped cold, so now he can either switch sides, or start again with a stronger effort. Wasters go for the first option, and shifts Putrid Boil to the right side, marking down Fraternizer while Greakk, Doomor, Drek and Davinra pushes on the Scavenger line. A lucky strike from Davinra knocks Idler off the field, and our right side is suddenly weaker than planned. The only hope is that Crima need to get along the long line of Wasters players, and thus cannot cut across the midfield to adance against our endzone. This gives us a little time, but we do not have much resources available. Warrior stays behind on our left flank, guarding the prone pestigor Hrand, and Breaker goes deep to stay a sweeper. The last two skinks helps Booster blitzing the leftmost Waster Davinra and topples him, but he is quickly back on his feet. Booster is toppled by Grakk, and Lightning is sent off with the evening's first injury by Doomoor, and now the Scavenger centre is wide open. On our left flank, Hrand blitzes Warrior, and stuns him, while Putrid Boil topples Fraternizer, so the left flank is open as well...

Surprisingly, the Wasters choose not to capitalise on this possibility, but tucks Crima in behind Putrid Boil on their right flank, preferring to keep the ball in the team rather than score an early goal, thus giving up the ball. Thus, when rookie rotter Grimtooth is tripped by the tail of Claws, we see an opportunity. Brewer topples Drek, which allows Claws to blitz the ballcarrier. He can't get him down, though, but shoves him into Protector, whose attempt carries no more luck than Claws' did. However, we got him squeezed in between fraternizer, Protector and Claws, and the skinks prevents the Wasters from reinforcing the cluster. However, Putrid Boil and Durmix are already in th cluster together with Crima, and when Durmix manages to push Claws away, Crima and Putrid Boil together pushes Fraternizer backwards and finally, he has to throw himself to the ground to avoid being surfed. On the other side of the field, Davinra tries to block Booster, but instead knocks himself out.

Halfway into the first half, action is thus tight, and the situation changes with almost every block and move. Crima got out of the first tight squeeze, but we intend to continue making life difficult for him, and marks him down with a sidestepping Warrior, and prepares a blitz by Claws. Unfortunately, as we suddenly remember from last match, Claws is rather against the idea of him blitzing, and so refuses, and it takes a certain amount of screaming from the prone team captain Fraternizer to get the lug moving..and then he stumbles across a foot from Dirmux, and topples before getting anywhere close to Crima!

This indignity allows the Wasters to take the initiative, and they put their Pestigors to good use. Grakk pushes Warrior away from Crima, while Hrand knocks Swimmer out of the match. These two were our last defence, and Crima can now advance unhindered almost to the goal line. Durmix stuns Wiggler and holds up Protector. We are practically out of resources now, with only Warrior and Breaker in a position to possibly hinder Crima, but first, other Wasters must be tied down. Booster pushes Mlvott back, and Brewer knock Grimtooth off the field, while still guarding the prone Doomoor. Protector gets some help by Claws, and injures Durmix, a hit sufficiently strong to keep him out of the rest of the match, while Fraternizer takes advantage of Putrid Boil's temporary confusion to get on the move, and almost by a miracle, he manages to go for it and end up next to Crima. Now, Warrior can move ahead of Crima, preventing the easy dodge away from Fraternizer, while Breaker prevents the interference of Hrand. Not a splendid defense, but hopefully enough.

Wsters move all available players up to help Crima, and Putrid Boil, Hrand and Grakk all arrive in place to help Crima, but once again, the Wasters want to stretch out the time before scoring, thus giving us yet another chance to stop the goal. Claws runs up and ties down bot Putrid Boil and Hrand, allowing Fraternizer to blitz Putrid Boil, topple him and move past the prone player to tie down Crima. Protector knock Drek out of the match, and Booster rips off Mivotts head. Unfortunately, the Wasters coach have no problem putting the head back on Mivott, and by some disgustingly sick ritual, it grows back on the neck. Mivott will be playing again... just not in this drive! Breaker moves onto the goal line to prevent an easy dodge for Crima, and around the ballcarrier we are now four Scavengers against three pestigors. Putrid Boil is left for humself a bit away, and can't get his act together without his teammates telling him what to do, so he is little danger right now. The only other waster on the field is Doomoorr, but he is surrounded by Brewer and Booster, and cannot help. The three pestigors are left to their own devices, and Crima goes for the simples variant of them all, dodging to the sideline and then blitzing Breaker away for the TD. And it.. almost works. However, Fraternizer is an experiened tackler, and just as Crima jumps away, he grabs the pestigors left horn and brings him down, and the ball is loose! Quickly, Fraternizer stuns Grakk, and this lets Breaker run away with the loose ball, albeit with some trouble while picking it up. Claws ties down Hrand, and Booster brings down Doomoor, allowing Brewer and Protector to safely cover Breaker while Wiggler can get himself into a scoring position. Thus, as Hrand misses his dodge, Breaker can safely run up to Wiggler and hand him the ball for the first TD of the day, just before the ref calls an end to the half! 1-0 Scavengers!

There were definitely some tight spots in that first half, but the Wasters' reluctance to score an early goal brought them down, and we could finally get the numerical advantage and wrest the ball from those pesky pestigors. THe score was an added bonus, but the most important thing was to stop the Wasters cold in their offensive drive. Now we will receive, and thus only need to control the ball to win. We still have 11 pleyers, even with Idler in the KO box, and rotters have to use all their reserves to cover for the absence of Durmix (injury) and Rixran (banned). This will likely be as exciting a half as the first...

Wasters are lining up in a balanced formation with Putrid and the three Chaos Warriors in the line of scrimmage, a secondary line of rotters and two pestigors on each flank. We plan to attck on our left flank, and concentrate there. Fraternizer blitzes Crima and tackles him to the ground. Davinra goes down as well, and Claws knocks Doomoor off the field after Protector failed to resist his foul appearance. The skinks protect the ball carried by Winner, and we are already one player up and in a good position. Wasters will not give up easily, though, and they shore up their right side defenses and brings Mivott over as deep sweeper, while Grakk attempts to cover two skinks. lightning and Brewer goes down on our left flank in a fight with Putrid, Verluk and Drek, but that is far away from the ball and carries little immediate interest. More worrying is the facttthat Hrand atempts to blitz away Swimmwer to get to the ballcarrier, but Swimmer sidesteps elegantly and Hrand is trapped between him and Booster, and cannot dodge further without risking too much.

We do not want to risk too much either, and proceed slowly. Protector blitzes Hrand, but only manages to push him away somewhat to allow Winner and Warrior to slip through the hole. Fraternizer blocks Crima again, and down he goes, but he is far from out. However, out is Davinra as Protector and Booster knocks him to the ground and stomps on him. It's only for the drive, but the Wasters are now three Chaos Warriors short and the remaining one is far from the ballcarrier, and even though Claws fails to block Sariz, we have local supriority around the ballcarrier by 6 to 4. By some fancy maneouvering and a lot of shoving, Wastes manage to bring Putrid and Sariz into the fray as well, and now we are 6 vs 6 around the ball. Time to change the odds! Wiggler helps Protector and Booster with Putrid Boil. This allows Booster to puush Putrid Boil away, freeing Protector to blitz Hrand. He resists by stepping backwards, but then, trapped against the sideline between Protector and Swimmer, who comes rushing to the aid, he is ruthlessly surfed by Winner and our back is free. The rest of the Wasters line is pushed backwards, but holds.

The Wasters are getting more desperate, and Mivott breaks away from Fraternizer in a risky move, and manages to blitz the ballcarrier. Winner looses his grip on the ball, but the bounce takes the ball into Scavenger territory and is unreachable for Mivott, who backpaddles into the Wasters line again. In an effort to bring up more reinforcements, Verluk tries to dodge Lightning, but is tripped and toppled. Scavengers are getting more confident now, and with 8 players around the ball against only 4 wasters and a confused Putrid Boil, they pushes the line a little step further towards the goal line, leaving the skink squad to protect Winner.

Out of options, the Wasters line has more than enough with trying to hold off the advancing Scavengers, and when Grakk fails utterly to block Breaker and cross over to help, he is brought down by an eager Breaker. This allows Fraternizer to stun Mivott and pin him up against the sideline, and as Booster stuns Sariz and a blitzing Protector pushes Crima backwards, Winner can sprint through and almost up to the goalline. Swimmer protects him, while Breaker, Wiggler and Warrior runs interference in case Crima should manage to break loose from his fight with Claws and Protector. Brewer and Lightning brings Verluk and Drek down as well, and the outnumbered Wasters are down on all fronts now. Grakk runs up to Putrid Boil, but it takes some time to convince him to help in DEFENCE, so Protector arrives on the scene to push him away from Putrid Boil. All action is now died out, as Winner patiently stalls the ball on the goalline while no other Wasters dare to raise their head up from the ground, for fear of being punced upon by eager Scavengers surrounding them. Winner steps in to score just before the end of the half, and that was that. 2-0 Scavengers, and as Vagabonds manage a draw, we are in the play-offs :) ... against the Pirates... :(







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