“I never was close. Unfortunately my weak players meant that I couldn't really get anywhere. My good dodge-rolls couldn't save me when I allowed myself to get surrounded, and soon almost everyone was off the pitch. The carnage was so bad for a little while that I chose not to use my apothecary on my dead lineman in the middle of the first half, rather saving it for one of my stars. Turns out that was the last casualty of the game (actually I made a BH!). 2-0 at half time to the wrong team...

The second half started with me receiving, but after for the second match in a row trying the same tactic (concentrating my players to one side since I start with half as many as my opponent) and getting a blitz or a perfect defense I'm starting to doubt it's validity... =)

Emphasy managed to score from that after some brawl, and I was going at it again. This time I had to make a pass up from my thrower to get the ball upfield (I was hoping my gutter could make it sort of safe near the other end zone) but luck wasn't really on my side, and my blitzer didn't even get a chance at catching the ball from Torsten. This time I managed to get the ball back in a decent position though, as Emphasy had needed to stretch himself to cage the ball. Here we had a disconnect issue, and when we reloaded we were unable to recreate the exact same position. The ball bounced in the wrong direction and was surrounded by his players instead of mine... so emphasy dodged away and allowed me to get to the ball next turn. That in turn allowed me to use the ball a little more creatively than otherwise, since none of my other players had moved, and I could go to 3-1.

Finally, I could also make it 3-2 after some skulls on emphasy's side which allowed my gutters to do what they do best - pressure down deep.

All in all I was really lucky to only lose by one td. For a while I would rather have guessed 5-0 than 3-2. Not to say that I played very badly, but some key moments screwed me up early on.

All the best to my opponent who showed some really nice manners after he had disconnected.

Good luck in the future (if you need it that is...), and hope to see you again on the pitch sometime.

/Gusten”