“Well well well...guys...I'm afraid that I may have just cost you the title.

It was all going so swimmingly...The 'Hoppers received and Waller pulled off a sweet get-out-of-trouble hand-off to put them well in place for a counter-attack with two runners waddling their way across the halfway line, with the whole Skaven team wondering what had happened from deep in the wrong half. At this point, one of the rats had already been done a mischief thanks to a swift kick in the proverbials by Bombur, but it was here, in the game's second turn...that it all went to pot.

Mr Creostoe scooped up a halfling, lobbed him over the Skaven lines to help protect the ball-carrier, and scored a direct hit on the poor little bugger. One BH and a Niggling Injury as irresistible lard-sack met immovable porker. From this point, everything we tried went wrong.

There were four or five fumbled Throw Team-mate attempts (most of which came from the cheeky swindling blaggard Deeproot Strongbranch), and the ones that did come off saw the little guy land on his head and exit the pitch...there were KOs from failed GFIs, failed dodges and all manner of other things, there were fumbled pickups, there were triple pushbacks from Deeproot on impertinent Stormvermin.

There was even time for more glorious irony, as my first TTM actually worked, and little Shirley trotted over towards the line to make it 1-5 and put a little sheen on things. At this point, Ian said "I'd love to make it 6 TDs...never done that." Obligingly, Shirley failed his GFI to score, knocked himself out, and they scooted the length of the pitch to score.

Allied to this, Ian's wee furry swine passed literally 95% of about 50 dodges (not just the Runners, either, the Stormvermin were nimbling around like it was going out of fashion, too) just to mock me...including a bunch of gratuitous ones...

Having said all this, yes i was unlucky (we had to reload on the last turn, so the luck score is a bit misleading) but i was also handed a lesson. The gutter runners were awesome, all scoring a brace each...and i had neither the pace, nor the tactical rigidity to deal with them. Humbling.

On the upside, John Candy and Shirley did show that the little blokes can mix it when they're riled...but i think it could be a troubling championship this season for the Kneehoppers.

Not enough cash to bring the frankly overpaid D'pratt String-you-along-and-pocket-the-cash-branch back for another game, so i hired an invaluable Apothecary instead.”