“UI VIII Qualifier: Crimson Lantern - Round 2

A fun and entertaining match that was, at times, literally from one end to the other.

With more mobility and reliability amongst my players, I really should have scored. However, with my wealth of inducements including a bribe, I got sidetracked trying to gang foul the better of the ogres. This involved getting enough assists on the blocks, and clumping my players together. As you can imagine, this was a dream tactic for the ogres, who enjoyed dominance in the maul - especially as I hit several turnovers on both down blocks with non block players. By the time I tried to recover and make a run for it, time was running out, and I'd not left anybody in touching distance of scoring. Amateur coaching!

In the 2nd half, the ogres should have won it in full time. A snotling slip up and knock out combined with some last ditch marking kept the ogres at bay afterwards. If anything, I eventually was unlucky not to score, having recovered the ball to the blodge blitzer downfield. As with all hits on the blodge blitzer (an irrelevant few aside) clean pows were there when required, and prevented the counter attack winner. That was the only luck I felt aggrieved by, as it thwarted my attempts to reshape my attack in the first half and said counter in the second, and all without tackle (the one thing I did manage to do in the game was keep the tackle ogre marked).

Neither of us had rerolls in overtime, and it became a chaotic scene of turnovers and injuries as the ogre strength really started to show. With a coin toss looking inevitable, big bad Antigua y Barbuda decided he'd had enough of watching his teammates toil, threw aside his marker and scooped up the ball, running clean through for the winner.

Congrats Zakatan and good luck in the qualifier final! On balance of coaching merit, you easily deserved it as I played this like a random ranked match and suffered the consequences.”