“I had one job here, and it wasn't to win the game. Oh sure, winning would have been nice, but then so would getting a cheque for a million pounds through the post - but neither of them was going to happen. All I really wanted to do was skill up the new thrower and get a few numbers on the board for him.

Well, the sunny weather wasn't a great start, but I gave it a go regardless, with a quick throw to a ready catcher, who then ran it back and handed it back to the thrower. And what do you know, it all worked. Sadly, the long pass on the following turn didn't - or maybe it was even a short pass, I don't remember, but either way, the numbers required were a lot higher than I'm used to and the ball went sailing off into the empty part of the pitch.

After that, RuneA had very little trouble getting hold of it, and getting it back into my endzone for a quick score. Which was fine, as it gave me back the ball. But sadly this time nothing went to plan. I did make the initial throw, but then fumbled the hand off, and then threw another 45 degree ball into nowhereland on the following turn.

Luckily, me defence was slightly better than my offence and I was able to keep RuneA from scoring again, so at the start of the second half I was only one score (and two players) down. And back on defence, of course.

RuneA then proceeded to stall out the half by crawling up the field while his bashy bashers dealt with any wood elves still standing. First down was the thrower, who was still still three passes away from skilling up, and after that I just sort of gave up and went blitzing with the tree until he took root.

In the end, it came down to a wood elf catcher and lineman versus six or seven high elves downfield who were basically tripping over their own feet to stay in a group and avoid getting into the endzone too quickly. So I made a desperate blitz on the ball carrier, knocked him over, stole the ball, and then on my following turn, after the ball had been stripped off me, I dodged back, collected the ball in my own endzone and then threw a pass to the tree from three tackle zones. With a catcher. And it was bang on target! Needless to say, th tree couldn't catch it, but that was okay, as it made it really difficult for the high elves to get to it on their final turn.

They did get to it, however, which was quite impressive, seeing as it was in two TZs, but then the blitzer fumbled the throw and I came away with a much narrower defeat than I deserved thanks to RuneA forgetting the famous old adage...Nuffle hates a staller.

So as well as the game itself, I also lost a useful lineman, but that's okay because I was planning to do a full rebuild anyway and get rid of everyone except the thrower and the tree. But then I couldn't bring myself to actually do it and so I'm back to where I was, just minus a useful lineman.

But the good news is that the thrower picked up the MVP and is now more accurate in his passing, so assuming there's no more annoying sunshine, I will probably get back to lobbing long bombs next time out.

Looking forward to it already.”