New Orleans Hoolicans Ravage Miswampi Crocfins 1-0 in RRR 540 Round 1

The New Orleans Hoolicans rained death, destruction, injury and a couple of what appeared to be bombs on a rather squishy MiSwampi Crocfin squad for a 1-0 victory in the first round of the Royal Rookie Rumble 540. Injuring 6 lizardmen and killing another, the Hoolicans still somehow struggled to advance the ball, eking out a last second 1-0 victory in true goblin fashion, despite nearly clearing the pitch.

“I thought we had a chance to do something special in this tournament,” said a stunned Crocfin coach after the game. “Then there was the kickoff, and yeah … next thing I know Van Crinkle’s severed head is in my lap.”

After receiving the opening kick, deftly caught by ooligan Jace Durar, the Hoolican’s impressive rookie fanatic Evelyn Ihate charged across the midfield line and slammed what looked suspiciously like a 30-pound iron ball into the side of Van Crinkle’s saurus skull. The blow severed his head, bathing the sidelines in blood, and causing the Crocfin coach to re-evaluate his defensive gameplan.

“It looked like a clean hit to me,” said the ref after the game. “Ball and what? No, no, that wouldn’t be legal. This Evelyn lass just has a lot vim and vigor, I’d say. Nothing wrong with that.”

Despite the impressive start to the drive, Durar stalled at midfield as the Crocfins closed in, even though Ihate was whirling around like a ballerina dressed in blood and gore, knocking several Crocfin players out of the game with her ball and … er … I mean, her ‘vim and vigor.’

In the last minute of the half, Ihate’s ‘vim and vigor’ finally turned against her when her out of control pirouetting sent her stumbling into her own teammate, trained troll Cesar Punk, who was not amused. Punk quickly lifted Ihate off the ground and dealt her a series of blows that forced her to sit out the remainder of the match. (Despite the fact that tournament officials deny that Ihate ever, in fact, had a ball and chain, it’s been reported that after Punk’s quick work with the fanatic, she was suspiciously treated by an apothecary who specialized in removing ball and chains from goblins’ throats.)

After blitzing Durar and boucing him among several sauraus’s and skinks, the Crocfins managed to separate the ooligan from the ball in the closing seconds of the first half. Rageen Mossheart scooped up the ball and sprinted into Hoolican territory, only to be blitzed by goblin lineman Kali Zotar, who lowered his head into the skink’s belly, causing Mossheart to lose the ball and his lunch (an assortment of rotting fish-heads) on the sidelines.

With Ihate out for the second half, the Crocifns looked to take control, and they seemed to be well on their way to a score early, when Micky Gesticky grabbed the ball and raced up the sidelines with two sauruses escorting in a sideline half cage formation. The end zone was in sight and Getsicky’s smile lit up the stadium as the little rookie skink was sure that he was going to score his first touchdown. But then something strange happened.

“Me thought me scoring touchdown soon,”Getsticky said after the game. “Me saw the endzone. Me saw no one in me way. And then something go boom, and now me here talking to you.”

What appears to have happened is that Hoolican bomma Nathan Galzar launched a bomb at Getsticky that exploded against his shoulder and knocked the skink unconscious before he hit even the ground. However, the game’s ref still insists there were no bombs used during the contest.

“I think the skink fella just slipped,” the ref explained after the game. “I guess he as trying to rush, maybe. That thing flying through the air? Must have been a bird. Maybe that distracted the poor little skink, and that’s why he tripped.”

Whatever the cause was, the curiously smoking ball bounced into Durar’s arms, and the ooligan immediately sprinted up field. With the trolls and goblins overwhelming the few remaining Crocfins on the pitch, Durar crossed midfield with no reptiles anyone near him. The only solace the Crocfins could take in the remaining minutes of the game was when one of the ‘birds’ flying out suspiciously from the area of Galzar apparently distracted the bomma himself, forcing him to trip and curiously explode.

However, the four remaining Crocfins could do little more than stumble around, take a bit more of a beating, and commit one final spiteful foul (that will force goblin lineman Chase Tir to miss the next game), as a snickering Durar crossed the goal line in the final seconds.

With the impressive win, the Hoolicans will advance to play the winner of Lost in Lustria and Les Amazones Vertigineuses in the next round of RRR 540. The Crocfins, meanwhile, will struggle to field a squad for their next match.

“I thought the Royal Rookie Rumble would be a good way to get these reptiles some experience,” said the Crocfin coach after the game. “Now I got a saurus funeral to go to, I got four players missing the next game, and two with niggling injuries. The biggest question on my mind now is, do we even have a team? The second biggest question—what do you wear to a saurus funeral?”