“This was an absolutely hilarious match to play. At one stage in the first half, neither team could pick up the ball, even with rerolls. And when a player finally did, he was normally knocked over soon after. I don't know how badly Illithian rolled during this period but I managed to rolled 1,1,1,1,5,1 at one point during this stage in the game. The fact that my opponent couldn't pick the ball up either made me feel better about it though! :-) Finally, in T8 I managed to pick the ball up in a TZ and score.

Despite starting the game with only 10 players vs 12, I managed to have a numbers advantage after the TD. Unfortunately for me, my opponents T8 blocks on the LOS resulted in a BH and a RIP, giving me only 6 players for the start of the second half. Still, I was up 1-0 at least.

The second half started rather amusingly. The kick-off landed on the LOS and ball handling again was a problem for the Norse as they failed a 3+ pick-up (and then the reroll) to begin the half. I can't remember if they finally picked it up on the next turn or not, but either way I was able to take it off them. This was short lived as the ball carrier was sacked next turn and the Norse eventually ran down the field to score the equaliser.

After the restart I lost the ball but was able to hold the Norse up long enough to stop a TD. In the end, with some chain-pushes the Norse fell 1 square short of scoring a winning TD.

Overall it was a very entertaining game, as much for the poor ballhandling rolls from both teams as much as anything else. In the end my team was retired after this game due to yet another Niggling SI and a RIP but they went down fighting. Illithian managed to roll a +AG on his Thrower for a skill roll. Hopefully now someone on the team will be able to pick the ball up! :-P

Thanks for the game Illithian.

Olaf the Stout”