“Ta-da! It finally happened :D with the help of our glorious Nuffle.

3:0 is pretty glossy, bit of a tough one for my opponent. A classic example was when I turnover with journeyman on LOS and his troll instantly goes stupid despite a minder and then he rerolls skulls into skulls on 2d as he's trying to blitz a path to my carrier. Also could barely pick up the ball let alone throw it accurately. It really didn't happen for him. Shame as he was top, we had some great banter throughout the game plus he gave me a great tip about marking up players with notes so they're visible reminders!

IT was reasonably even until midway through the first half, eventually I dislodged it from the cage, it bounced and fell kindly on the outside, and I was able to sneak it away. But not doing anything particularly different I feel, just got a bit more rub of the green. INstead of bouncing deeper into tackle zones it bounced over downed players on the wrong side. So to some extent that's luck, it's hard to account for.

OTOH, I was overall being a lot more patient, had players screening any breakaways so the cage could never make massive yardage without exposing itself. ONly had one chaser on the reverse side. Fewer people locked in tackle zones. Previously, I've been exposed trying to push for the carrier too hard. Progress.

HE kicked to me second half and I showed some more progress, by not bottlenecking my own attack, I maintained width, with players all along the LOS, and just probing gently along the ballside. When he came over to that side, I ducked my runner all the way over to the other side, completely shifting the point of attack. WIth numbers over near the ball and his low AG Blockers suddenly marked, it was hard for him to shift resources. I worked the overlap fairly well and produced another score. I think that's more how you're meant to do it!

Then there was a blitz result and I got a blitzer under it and he couldn't recover, the major story being that thanks to blodge, he stayed on his feet from a powpush, which seems symbolic of how the team is developing. As if to emphasise that, I was able, having blitzed him clear of markers (thanks to being still on his feet to provide the assist) to hand off to another blitzer who needed the 3spp for skillup but dropped the catch. But thanks to burgeoning levels of block and dodge saving me rerolls, I still had one reroll on one of the last turns of the game! So the team is progressing really nicely all of a sudden. My 3 uninjured blitzers have blodge, my runner has block, I've got a kick lino and another lino with block.”