“It was a close match on paper, but the Squeakers found themselves on the backfoot when their emerging star Kwikkwik failed to take the field due to a niggling injury he sustained two matches ago.

The Squeakers lined up with just 11 players against the Lords 13, and found themselves playing very defensively when the Lords fans killed the ref just before the opening kickoff! Scared of being fouled to death, the Squeakers formed a 10 rat cage around the ball carrier and advanced slowly upfield 5 yards at a time!

The Squeakers took about half of the opening period to score, then stayed too far back on defence in fear of being fouled to stop the Lords from scoring back quickly. The Squeakers then caged again on the next kickoff to score their second. Squeakers up 2-1 at the half with a strong advantage coming into the second period as the Lords had two Lion Warriors badly hurt at this stage, including their emerging star Enilarn Wildfox (S4 Blodge, Nerves of Steel!).

The Squeakers started their defence in the second half with a blitz! Thanquol charged deep into the backfield, but was unable to sack the ball carrier. The Squeakers had pushed too deep on the blitz and were unable to stop the Lords from scoring a quick TD to level the scores at 2 all!

The Squeakers on the next drive formed a cage again behind the line of scrimmage. The Lords collapsed on the cage, and then were pushed back, to collapse on the cage again. This lasted for almost two thirds of the remaining time in the second half whilst the Squeakers fought for every yard. Suddenly, the cage exploded, with players streaming downfield whilst the ball was still protected in a smaller cage than before, and the Lords were then unable to stop the Squeakers from scoring a third TD to regain the lead.

The Lords had just enough time left to score a TD, but wary of being blitzed by the very dangerous Gutter Runner Thanquol (Horns, Dauntless, Tackle Block), they ran the ball backwards whilst two Lion Warriors penetrated deep into the Squeakers backfield. The Squeakers failed to flatten one of the two players, but stuck plenty of rats on them to try make it harder for them to catch, and then dodge out.

The Lords ran forwards and threw a Long Pass (would have been a Long Bomb except for Strong Arm) but the pass just missed (couldn't roll a 4+ with a Pass reroll) and time ran out.
----
A very tight game that went down to the wire! If the pass had been accurate, then his Catcher needed a 2+ with reroll to catch, but then had to make a 3+ dodge without Dodge (due to Prehensile Tail and Tackle) and then another 2+ dodge with a Dodge reroll. Very tight game.

I chose to cage early on because he had two Strip Ball Dragon Warriors, and with him killing the ref, last thing I wanted was for him to get a Pow on a Gutter Runner and him doing a +4 foul LOL. It worked really well as I had two players with Guard, and I had a S4 Storm Vermin and my trusty Rat Ogre to keep pushing back or powing him, so he only had one to two blocks (including a blitz) on his turns.

Anyway, a fun game against a sporting coach who wants a rematch in the near future :)”